Are we there yet?

NB: I decided to post those two odd dreams mentioned yesterday. Here's the first one.

Sleeping late is something I do without guilt on weekends, as I generally don’t get enough sleep on weeknights. But last weekend I overdid it a bit. Smallish interruptions like ringing phones and barking dogs kept waking me up, and I would think “just a few more minutes”. Then doze for another two hours.

I finally crawled out of bed and stayed out of bed just before 3:00 pm on Sunday.

Having cut down on my anti-anxiety medication, my REM sleep and dreams have returned. Two longish dreams, both confusing, stand out.

In the first one, I am with my father. He is driving a school bus full of children, and although I appear as being the same age as when he was alive – 19 – I have a new cell phone with me. I'm sitting near the back of the bus, next to a window. My father’s head shows no trauma; usually, he appears in my dreams wounded but unaware of it.

He isn't talking to me, but he seems to be in a cheerful mood. This is where you can say dream on. In real life, my father would have been driven mad if he drove a school bus for more than 5 minutes.

My father is having trouble dropping off the children. We’re on a rural blacktop road, it’s pouring with rain, and the roads are flooding up to three feet in places. But somehow we end up at a casino in Oklahoma. (Another weird detail. In real life, my father never gambled.)

My father disappears and I don’t want to gamble, so I go have a manicure. The manicurist, who’s quite cute, tries to talk me into some additional, semi-legal services. But I feel I need to get back to the bus and I don’t find her sexually attractive.

We set out again and the children are hours late. It's getting dark. Parents begin to call me on the cell, wanting to know where their children are.  I tell them outrageous lies, including a story about a forced detour through San Marcos.  (I think San Marcos appeared in the dream, as Ryan* called me Saturday afternoon and discussed an unhappy trip there.) Finally we start delivering kids to their homes.

The last two children live at a very expensive ranch. We have get permission to come through the gates and enter an area that’s designed like the arrivals platform of a train station, with the addition of life-size bronze statues of horses. I get out to look at the statues.

The father of the last two approaches me; he’s attractive, yet a bit too country for my taste. He confronts me directly for lying to him about the San Marcos detour, but after a short conversation I realize he’s interested in me. He begins to kiss me, and I kiss him back. This is where this dream ended. 

* See Key to Characters at right.