Ruthless

"You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love."
-Ernest Hemingway

Here's my problem. Everyone leaves me alone at work when I write on my blog... but I'm not in love.

But I can be ruthless.

Pull up a chair and lets psycho-analyze my last night's dream. All I'm gonna say is,

Freud my arse...


This dream was not Freudian. Why? Because with Freud, elements in dreams are symbolic. This dream was not symbolic... at least not entirely. It was taken straight from my life - real life. My subconscious wasn't interpreting the conscious; it was connecting events and thoughts from my consciousness through imaginary sequences of events.

The dream itself jumped around. There was no semblance of a whole, and events never seemed to wholly flow and fit together, so I will recount the dream in separate slices for each part.

The first part of the dream involved me being a guy. Yes, I was most definitely a guy. I was also going on a double date. There was an anonymous chick with me, and an anonymous other couple with us. We were walking up the hill around some dumpsters. Our destination was this hole-in-the-wall diner of sorts, where we got milkshakes. The only point to this section of the dream was that I kept thinking, "I'm not a girl, so, I must be a guy... As a guy, I need to be a leader..." and then I contemplated what it meant to show leadership in a relationship. Why this scenario? I have no idea... except for the thought process. I recently (say, past 9 months) have been thinking about what leadership looks like, especially in relation to me being in a potential romantic relationship. I've gathered ideas as I have observed others on what it looks like and what leadership qualities a guy (read: my potential spouse) needs to have.

Ok. Moving on. So what was in my mind about leadership qualities as I strolled up this hill playing the part of a man? Well, I concluded at some point that I needed to take leadership in planning a menu for my household. (whaaaaa??) This is not my actual thought of what a guy's leadership looks like: planning a menu. However, I have been reading a couple websites about planning a menu, and talking with my sister about cooking and she has been pushing me to see that perhaps life would be easier if I had a menu planned out. Clearly this is a personal "leadership" issue, if you will, in myself, as I need to take the initiative and time to figure out what I need to eat (and thus eliminate unnecessary time and minutos in the grocery store, which of course is part of the goal since I loathe going there... as well as pursuing healthy eating.) Just yesterday I was also checking this book out, and am hoping to convince my sister to read it with me... (halfway unrelated, I know.) (On another note, it sure would be nice to not have to plan the menu every week for my future household. Yay for guys who can - and like to! - cook!)

The next section of my dream involved picking up a few dozen hard boiled eggs from this diner (I was still a guy), and then driving off in a jeep wrangler. Why the eggs? Because about 2 weeks ago, I had to ask about 5 people to donate hard boiled eggs for an Easter outreach through my church. I was in charge of showing cute international kids how to dye Easter eggs. I also had to boil 2 dozen eggs. Why the jeep wrangler? Not sure, but my cousin Kenneth has or used to have a jeep wrangler, and, well, it was "suweet!" Maybe, if I were a bachelor, that would be the car I'd envision myself driving. ;)

I also dropped some of the hard boiled eggs on the ground. I'm sure Freud would have something to say about that, but I don't, except that I'm a klutz.

At some point, I became Kristi again. It was around the egg-dropping/jeep wrangling section. Then - I think back in the diner - I was talking to this guy, Brandon, who works at my office. This was ironic because Brandon and I have never in real life communicated more than 5 words to each other. However, this actually really bothers me. It bothers me because he's young, and I think, wouldn't he want to get to know other people his age in such a place? But everytime I see him, he intimidates me with a look of anger and annoyance that seems to be painted on his face. It is actually my goal that before I leave this place, I will at least introduce myself, and maybe see if I can glimpse an expression other than anger and annoyance. This is also made more ironic by the fact that I ran into this guy while out for coffee with Lauren about a month ago. Still... no words were exchanged. So in my dream, we were just natural pals. Then, I proceed to introduce him to my friend Jake who just happens to appear. He probably appeared because 1. I just saw him a few weeks ago in person and 2. He just had his oral last week and I had just recently got an email from him about it. What was more was that I revealed to Brandon that Jake actually worked in the cubicle RIGHT ACROSS from him. Brandon had no idea (probably because he's angry and stays in his cubicle by himself all the time, right?) This was strange because... I could never see Jake working at a motor oil company like I do.

I became aware in my dream that I had forgotten that I was supposed to go to the Gallery Hop with Lauren that night... (which we are supposed to go to tonight)... I had instead ridden in a jeep wrangler, talked to Brandon and Jake, and had espresso with Brian. (Actually, I don't remember any espresso being consumed, but I was at a coffee shop were lots of people were consuming espresso... Not coffee mind you, just espresso...) This is ironic because something similar happened last week but the roles were reversed. However, I am pure evil because not only did I ditch Lauren, but I ditched her for Brian... oooo... backstabbing! I am an evil friend. My dream confirms it.

So yea, Brian was in my dream. (be very afraid.) He was chilling in this espresso-only hip coffee place... it actually resembled a big IKEA showroom. Probably because my mom mentioned to me over dinner last night that she was thinking about going to IKEA in a few weekends. (She also mentioned, well, when asked out of sheer curiosity, that she would panic if I ever thought of getting on a plane to California to meet some guy I met online... and I'd say the panic is understandable... when asked if how she would feel if I took a girlfriend with me she said she would still panic. When asked how she would feel if said guy flew here to see me instead, she said maybe she'd be okay with that... so I'm not my mom, and neither are you, but, you know, I can sympathize with you Lauren...) Everything in this espresso place had that shiny silver metallic look and all the wood had a light finish on it. There were huge windows on every side, overlooking what appeared to be a really dirty river with barges on it, reminiscent of the Mississippi or something out of Huck Finn... again, ironic, because my roommate Jessica just returned my copy of Huck Finn to me a few days ago after she finished reading it. It also struck me that this place was not somewhere I would ever expect to find Brian, albeit I have never actually met him so I wouldn't really know, right?, but it looked way too trendy and commercialized and glossy and aseptic. There seemed to be this contrast between the low-lying river coffee place (trendy, clean, open spaces, yuppie) and the diner on the hill (dirty, crammed, dark lighting, behind dumpsters)... this contrast between wealth and poverty... which just makes me think of The Great Gatsby and this photographic representation of the novel I did when I was in the 11th grade... which again is ironic because I just loaned The Great Gatsby to Jessica after she finished Huck Finn... (It's all making sense...)

Back to Brian in yuppie-espresso-IKEA-look-alike-showroom. He is sitting in a black hooded sweatshirt on a bar stool at the "coffee bar." I walk in and we apparently already know one another. He is waiting on these 4 gentlemen a few stools down to finish their conversation. He is next in line. Two of the gentlemen are selling or pitching something to the other two. The other two, you could say, were "customers." One guy looked like George Plimpton. Probably because I had just read yesterday an interview between Plimpton and Hemingway. The Plimpton look-alike was a psychic, or maybe he was a psychiatrist, or maybe it was both... and Brian was waiting to see him. (I am not implying that Brian is like Will Hunting...) (Or that he should consult a psychic...) The assistant to Plimpton look-alike was holding a mix between a palm pilot and a video iPod. He was showing the two customers a video about why they, too, should consult the psychic. This is also ironic because I had a conversation with my dad about a week ago where I ranted about how lame video iPods are because the screen is so small, and how lame and ridiculous in general hand held TVs and other such devices are that portray images because either it just proves you can't entertain yourself without TV, that you are bound to images or your existence is dependent upon pictures (a la Mao II by Don DeLillo which I also happen to be currently reading...), and that you care nothing of quality since the size of the image ruins any quality that may have hitherto existed. I also think psychics are lame and ridiculous, so we have two ridiculoso elements merging in my dream.

I ask Brian why he is seeing a psychic, and he says because of his anxiety. I tell him "good luck." It is then that I call Lauren on my cell phone... in front of Brian... (I told you I was evil)... and because she's a swell friend who doesn't care that I ditched her to hang out with another of her friends, she says "OK" and agrees to come over to my place at 9:30pm with Andrea to hang out. I remember her laughing at some point in the conversation. Maybe because I can usually make her laugh out of my sheer idiocy and lame-o attempt at humor on the phone. (This is a pretty standard occurrence.)

Then there is a return to diner-on-the-hill. However, the place is closed, barred by diner-esque red sparkly chairs. Disappointing, since all diners should be open 24 hours a day. Mary Duffy is sitting on the stoop. I have no idea why Mary Duffy appeared in my dream. Apparently she worked there... and she worked at 2 other diners, (clearly she has a ubiquitous presence), and at a place called "Nacho Quiche." (Which doesn't exactly sound like the most appetizing eat...)

That is about where the dream ended when my alarm woke me up at 6:12am.