shoes and socks

i had a bizarre dream last night ... lately i haven't been dreaming much, and i think it's because i've been snoring so hard over the past few weeks that i'm not even getting deep enough sleep to dream. but last night (even though i snored a lot, apparently) i had one of the most unusual dreams in a long time.

the weird thing about it: in at least one part, i knew it was a dream because of comments i made to myself. this always fascinates me, because it's happened to me a few times before.

in part 1 (yes, my dreams have chapters) i was heading off to a work appointment with a colleague from apple computer ... we were walking along a boardwalk of sorts, heading to a temp agency where i used to work, and we were window shopping. i remember stopping at an art gallery, and we were peering in through the window for a moment, then moved on.

except that i left my shoes at the window.

i didn't realize it until a few minutes later, and once i did, in my dream i had a long shot from the water, looking at us walking on the boardwalk, and i was wearing these ridiculous horizontally striped, brown and yellow socks -- like a clown, or maybe the socks from some NFL uniforms of the 1960s.

i apologized instantly and started running back to find the shoes -- i didn't immediately realize where i'd left them -- while my colleague just rolled her eyes.

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according to the dream dictionary, this could mean a few things:

In general, shoes represent your approach to life. It suggests that you are well-grounded or that you are down to earth. It also represents your convictions about your beliefs. ... If your forget your shoes, then it suggests that you are leaving restraints behind you. You are refusing to conform to some idea or attitude.

i like this analysis ... but read on, and you'll see this:

To dream that you are not wearing any shoes, signifies that you have a lack of confidence in yourself and low self-assurance. You may be dealing with issues concerning your self-identity. Thus if you dream that you lose your shoes, then it suggests that you may be searching for your identity and finding/exploring who you are.

how, then, to interpret the dream? if i forgot to wear my shoes after the gallery, then i'm a rebel. if i lost my shoes at the gallery, then i'm adrift, unknown to myself, without a solid identity.

the self-referential part, though? in the dream, when i rounded the corner and found my shoes, sitting perfectly next to each other in front of the gallery window, i said "i wonder what this shoe thing means. i'll have to look that up."

i knew it was a dream ... and that's the part that i'm amazed by this morning. having the self-referential dream suggests to me that it's a story as much as it is me working out issues in my life. i wonder if everyone's dreams are like that -- little movies, complete with scenes, different camera angles, cut edits, etc.

three things probably sparked the dream: (1) i worry constantly that my more seasoned colleagues think i'm a novice at my new job -- they'd be right, of course, but i still worry; (2) i took amina to the airport last night and left the house in my slippers; and (3) i was messing around with final cut pro last night, cutting up some movie clips, just to see if i could do it well.

the other part of the dream involved steve jobs convening a panel of interesting people (of which i was one) for a seminar sponsored by target. each of us would be asked a question in our area of expertise, but none of us knew the question before he or she was asked by El Steveo. i was sitting next to jamie foxx, and he was the first one called upon -- to do a tap dance, of all things.

later in the dream, i was asked by steve to describe "the (jibberish word) experience of a website i recently paid for" ... that's not exactly what it was, because i can remember the scene being edited so that i could see the card he was holding ... but i started babbling about dot Mac, and the new webmail interface ... boring stuff, and steve kept giving me the "hurry it up" hand signals.

but the self-referential part: someone murdered jamie foxx by suffocating him with a stick of mitchum deodorant. and he was talking to me, and asked if i wanted the same thing to happen to me, and of course i said "no," and we just laid there, the murderer, jamie foxx and me, and i remember thinking "oh, i've seen this one before" -- as in another dream.

i couldn't find "mitchum deodorant" in any dream dictionary.

diggler voted

diggler voted, originally uploaded by pr9000.

well, trotter didn't vote. but i did ... unhappily, without a good feeling in my gut, but it's done.

more from the vaults

in college, my good friend nancy clinton gave me some old beatles memorabilia her mother didn't want any more ... one of them was this incredible sheet music book of "sgt. pepper" ...

pepper album cover (front cover), originally uploaded by pr9000.

nancy was (probably still is) a pretty cool person -- she never failed to make me laugh, and i had a crush on her for about an hour my freshman year, until i realized that a good friend of mine was going to ask her out ... for some reason, i turned off that part of my brain and said "good luck" and that, as they say, was that.

she visited my parents' estate in farmington once, and a few weeks after that i waited in line with about every senior woman at denison and secured her a really good room in the best all-women dorm ... for some reason, i turned off that same part of my brain mentioned above and wasted a great opportunity to flirt with rich college babes.

pepper lyrics (back cover), originally uploaded by pr9000.

for some reason, the lyrics to the songs on side A are on individual pages inside, but the lyrics to side B are on the back cover here ... it's odd to me, because that is by far the better side. six songs -- indian raga, old-tyme vaudeville shtick, power-pop, distorted saxophones, a hard-rock visit from side A and then "a day in the life" ... for my money that's the side i prefer. especially "when i'm sixty-four" and then "lovely rita."

pepper TOC, originally uploaded by pr9000.

the original album came with cutouts: a moustache, a picture card of Sgt. Pepper, stripes, badges and a "stand up" of the band. and here the theme is continued, thought thank goodness nobody cut that part out.

sources: no shit, sherlock

sources: no kidding, originally uploaded by pr9000.

gee, ya think?

blast from the past -- century-old denison postcards

i have a pile of things to be scanned and blogged about that reaches almost to the ceiling -- old ads, original 128k mac manuals, lots of snapshots from the pre-digital days ... and i never get around to doing it.

but in the past few weeks, i've secured a brand-new mac pro with like a bazillion gigs of RAM, and while setting it up, i decided to attach the ol' flatbed and start some scanning.

first up: old postcards of denison university ... at one time, before the nostalgia for campus days completely wore off, i would troll ebay and look for denison items. invariably i'd find tons of stuff from denison, texas, and from some harlot author named janelle denison. i did manage to find some old postcards, with the intention of ... well, i can't say what my intention was at the time. it's just a weakness -- in finding URLs for this post, i was on ebay and almost bid on a pennant from 1918.

sigh.

science hall, originally uploaded by pr9000.

if memory serves, this is now called barney-davis hall. it was barney when i was there, and was the science building at the time. i have heard, though i don't really know for sure, that it's now administrative offices. it had the old, creaky wood floors, though i was only in there about three times in four years (and most of those were to see one person).

and when i say "if memory serves" i mean "i have been looking at this because i can't remember for shit anymore."

doane, originally uploaded by pr9000.

doane hall was originally called doane academy, and according to my trusty copy of "heritage and promise: denison 1831-1981," doane was built in 1892 to house students, college offices and a big-ass chapel. as is the case with most colleges, the administrative needs grow like weeds -- i would imagine the administration took the building over in 1893.

doane had gorgeous offices, especially for the president on the second floor. michele myers was president during my time there; my roommate, best friend, bullsheet editor and all-around procrastination teacher john had the biggest crush on that woman's voice -- not her body, not her face (though she was cute and perky), just her accent. the mere mention of her name still makes john blush.

she'd meet with the campus media editors once a week, to help manage the stories we were reporting. for the most part, she did a great job, as the campus media had no teeth. i still kick myself thinking of all the real news that i knew about, but never ever reported ... drug busts, sexual assaults, an underground klan-esque group of fraternity boys, professors diddling with co-eds -- denison had it all. too bad most students never knew about it, or only knew very little (and even that through rumor and innuendo).

faculty, originally uploaded by pr9000.

these postcards all come from a professor named a.a. griffa. i have to scour the book to see if he's mentioned; there is no index. damn you, g. wallace chessman, denison historian!

burton, originally uploaded by pr9000.

burton, i think, houses music. i took a guitar class there once. it's either music or dance -- i'm voting music, but only because i don't remember staring at dancer babes in that building. i stared at (insert discipline/major here) babes a lot -- lots of staring, very little touching.

talbot, originally uploaded by pr9000.

there is something called the " Samson Talbot Hall of Biological Science" but this ain't that ... at least, i don't think. there was a bunch of work done in that area between the west quad and the academic quad not long after i graduated. at one time, building 12 was woods and a few parking spots.

isn't it sad how little i remember of campus? it's only been a decade.

Very cute outfit for her birthday!

Very cute outfit for her birthday!, originally uploaded by beths96.

hotel rooms are curious things

this is the third hotel stay i've had in the past week -- a courtyard by marriott in elmhurst, illinois; the hollywood roosevelt hotel in la-la land; and the marriott santa clara in san jose, california.

my dad called yesterday and greeted me with "hello, globetrotter!" ...

i'm not, and i don't want to be, especially if being one means having to spend time in hotel rooms. now don't get me wrong -- there is nothing at all bad about my experiences in the marriott chain. and i got silver elite status a few weeks ago (for doing nothing, thank you very much), so it was especially pleasant to be greeted like a semi-rock star here, with concierge lounge access and a free choice of an in-room dirty movie, a cup of day-old coffee, or 2.5 marriott reward points -- just for being me!

wow.

but it's the little things that really suck. like the in-room coffee makers marriott provides. it has one of those oval pouches of coffee, and a little triangular package with all the essential coffee supplies inside. for a four-cup pot of coffee, marriott helpfully provides two creamers, one sugar and two sweet-n-chemically-low packets.

i used the entire supply on one cup of coffee.

seriously, marriott, if you're going to offer it, offer it right -- don't make it half-assed, hoping that i'll order a pot of coffee to my room. if that's your plan, then do like the roosevelt and make that little coffee maker akin to the cash bar and charge me to use it. that'll be enough incentive to call room service. or like the courtyard last week, and don't supply anything.

make it easy, make it clear, and let me make the choice, don't half-ass me to death, or nickel and dime me into a choice that i'd be happy to make on my own, without your bizarre incentives.

what i found to be weird this week

i was in hollywood, staying at the roosevelt hotel, and each morning the paper delivered to my door: the new york times.

wait. isn't there some other major paper ... with close to the same name ... that's based in los angeles? apparently, that place is a mess.

therapy

100_3466, originally uploaded by beths96.

a large dose of bad news in the typing out loud household this week ... a dear friend is sick, and it's got us very sad and blue.

so my new therapy will be to look at this picture, over and over.

random stuff that's been in my "temps" folder for weeks now

"Monday Night Football" eloquence by Mr. Tony Kornheiser:

Monday night belongs to Brett Favre. He is a dead-solid lock first-ballot Hall of Famer. Yet what we've been hearing for a year has been, "Will Favre get out of the way so that the Packers can look at Aaron Rodgers?"

Me? I don't know Aaron Rodgers from Mr. Rogers, and I don't care to look at him, as long as Favre is upright.

Prideful, defiant, singular Brett Favre has been the face of the Packers since 1992. That's 15 seasons -- or since Aaron Rodgers was seven. In that time, Favre has started 225 straight games at quarterback. Like Trent Green, quarterbacks get carted off the field every game. These guys are meat back there, and somehow Favre keeps going.

Favre playing football, Cal Ripken playing baseball, Joan Rivers on the red carpet -- there's your ironmen. Sure, Favre has lost a little off his fastball, and sure, Favre throws into double and triple coverage too often, but after playing Hamlet about retirement, Favre has finally come clean. He wants to play football no matter how lousy his team is. He wants to be out there slinging it, trying to make something big happen, raging against the dyling of the light. Good for him, good for us.

And "Monday Night Football" ... whatever-the-opposite-of-"eloquence"-is by Mr. Joe Theismann:

"And glad that we could be here."

What a moron.

***

The 10 best Will Farrell skits, as determined by 80s-favorite Cracked magazine. Nature Goulet is good, but "that's why I love pornography" is my all-time favorite.

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Maybe it just seems to me that graphic design on both sides of WWII is the best graphic design of the past 100 years. I mean, look at this 40s-inspired poster for George Clooney's latest Oscar attempt -- I mean, that's just outstanding design. Maybe that's why I found this library of University of Michigan football program covers so interesting.




But I think this is my favorite:



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Norm MacDonald makes fun of "The Crocodile Hunter's" death ...

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Tiny, edible food.