Dreams

Steinvic was out of town for work overnight, and I woke up at 4:18 a.m. (I looked at the clock) due to tiny woofs and whimpers from our pup. We crate him at night in a blanket-lined cage in our room…something we started the first night he was home with us. I listened to him, working through whatever monster-filled encounter he was having in his sleep, heard him let out a big sigh, and then he was back off to dreamland…hopefully one that featured large flower-filled fields and sunshine.

I was, however, wide awake.

I’d been dreaming, too. In my dream, a girl I’d gone to junior high with was now an adult, critiquing my art book. I remember feeling confident showing her my book, but as she paged through, none of my drawings were complete. They weren’t how I’d remembered them, either...much more amateurish than what was in my mind's eye. I found myself embarrassed at first and making excuses, but then admitted that they weren’t as good as some other things I’d done, and maybe I needed to just buy another book and start over.

The Girl…I remember her well. She was very popular. She seemed older than everyone else…a ring leader of sorts for her clique. Instead of the trendy, 80s clothes the rest of my class wore, she had her own conservative, expensive style. Perfectly manicured, long, oval nails. Impeccable handwriting. Pretty blonde hair – there was never a bad hair day in her world. She wore a tiny amount of tastefully applied makeup. When she laughed, she was reserved. She was not silly and didn’t act out in class. I remember that she had a few steady boyfriends, but no one gossiped about her. She made great grades. I’d heard (not in a bad way) that she sometimes drank at parties and smoked a little weed with the other kids, but never that she’d made a fool of herself. In retrospect, she was a grown-up in an adolescent body.

I, on the other hand, was a mega-dork.



A five-minute sketch of me, in all my dorky glory, circa 1983.

I was skinny, had permed, stringy hair, wore glasses and bulky train-track-style braces. I had no boobs to speak of (or not speak of) and absolutely no style. I hid my lack of shape and style in loose, brandless jeans, polo or denim shirts and an occasional shaker sweater from The Limited that my aunt sent me. (My family really couldn’t afford The Limited at that time.) I giggled and freely acted dorkily, with my small, tight clan of dorky friends, all of us wishing we were less dorky, but having no idea how to achieve that. I for sure wasn’t going to parties, drinking casually or smoking weed…most of my Friday nights were spent drawing at my Dad’s desk, peripherally watching The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Dr. Who.

I can remember a couple of instances where I dared to try to talk to The Girl…once chiming into a conversation before chorus where there were just a few of us in the classroom. I think I said I thought she’d surely win a seat on the student counsel if she ran. She shot me down saying something like, “I don’t remember asking your opinion.” I slinked into my second-row alto seat, red-faced, slumping back into my dorkiness and pretending to read something important so that no one could see the humiliated tears trying to form behind my thick glasses. (I was a foolishly sensitive kid.)

In the eighth grade, at the end of the year, everyone was passing their yearbooks around, getting cleverly crafted signatures. “Stay sweet!” “LYLAS!” (Love ya like a sis!) “KIT (keep in touch) I mean it!” While mine was being passed back to me, The Girl intercepted it. I saw her writing and wondered what she could possibly have to say to me. It said something like, “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch to you.” No, really…that is what she wrote. I was a little concerned that the word “bitch” was forever in my yearbook and that my parents would see it and I’d somehow be in trouble, but more, I felt somehow…taller.

In ninth grade, I had contact lenses and had discovered mousse and learned to feather my hair. Money was a little less tight so my wardrobe had improved. My braces were off and I was permitted to wear a little more makeup to school. I still didn’t have boobs, but realized that a lot of thinner girls in my class were in the same predicament, so I pretended not to care. Mom gave me Chanel No. 5 that year and I was starting to understand the allure of girly things, the art of passing notes instead of trying to talk in class and began to develop a thickening attitude – healthily calloused – of not really giving a damn about what others thought of me.

And, most importantly, a new girl in school ended up in my homeroom. She was very, very cool and worldly. And pretty. For some reason, she took to me right away. The popular girls wanted to be friends with her. And so, they started to be kind to me. Including The Girl. Like…I got to sit with Those Girls sometimes. I wasn’t part of their clique per se, but I could sort of pass.

The Girl went to a different school for tenth through twelfth grade. A school I’d always dreamed of going to. I maybe saw her once at a football game or something, far away and out of the corner of my eye, as she talked with former classmates, but I've never talked to her again.

Back to today. Out of curiosity, I googled (yes I used Google as a verb, and I did nosily look someone up online) her name and found that she seems to have a wonderful life. She looks grown up, more weathered and outwardly more approachable and authentic. I’m totally not surprised at all...she's always been so talented. It made me happy, if not a tiny bit jealous, to find her excelling in a profession I’ve dreamt of and living in a part of the country that Steinvic and I adore. She actually has a blog and I thought, comment? No, too creepy. Maybe not. What would I say? “Hello from Cincinnati. I had a weird dream about you that made me curious about what you’re doing and I found your blog. Happy that you’re doing so well and wistfully envious that you’re in a career that should be mine, living in a place that my husband and I would love to live. Yes, I’m still jealous of you. But in a nice way. I swear. I’m not crazy.”

No. If I were her reading that, I wouldn’t believe the not crazy part. Instead, I think I need to get those art books out and really start working. I have a hundred story ideas in my mind, a thousand projects, a million little lightening bugs flickering around in my brain, but I haven’t done a damn thing about any of them. She has. She knew what she was going to be when we were kids, and she’s done it and done it well.

Steinvic and I have a good life here...lots of blessings. Who knows...maybe some would envy our lives a litte. But I belive that what I bring to our existence could be richer, if I apply myself.

I keep saying it, but now I have to do it. I have to get busy on me. Thanks for the kick in the pants…

Music

The cold...it lingers and lingers. Have you ever been sick yet determined to not miss out on something really special?

I took an extra dose of non-drowsy medication. I breathed deeply. I ignored the bad hair day I was having and walked tall, telling myself that I won't be defeated by a silly, stupid headcold.

I drove to Columbus, listening all the way to cheerful music to help propell myself into the right mindset.

I arrived and hugged my husband in a way that hopefully prevented the transferrence of germs. And then made happy chat with any friends or family who would listen, acknowledging that yes, I have a cold and sure, I'll be OK.

We found Young Man and he was nervous and smiling and happy we were there. His Mom suprised him by returning early from a business trip just to see him perform and he was thrilled. (And so devoted that she did this knowing she'll have to make the four-hour flight back to that business trip this morning...wow!) He had a few other fans to cheer him on along with us - his aunt, uncle, cousin and friends, his half-siblings and his girlfriend.

We tucked into our rows down front, all of us there for the same reason - we love him.

And he played. He played by himself and he played with friends. He played five songs and we hung on every beat of his drums, every plink of the vibraphone, every tsk of the symbols.

Young man was fantastic. All those hours of studying and practicing and listening to music have paid off.

I'm so proud that his Dad encouraged him to follow his dreams. I like how his dreams sound. His dreams weave music. And that music makes people smile and applaud. He has a purpose and he's discovered it and it's a privelige to witness...and hear.

So, for a few hours, I forgot about being sick. Music has the power to do that, too - make you forget about your cares...and your sore throat.

We Are Sick, We Are Sick, We Are Sick, Sick, Sick...

Happy New Year! We didn't decide to begin 2011 with mega-colds, but that is exactly what has happened, despite the hand washing, sanitizing, disinfectant spraying and even a night in separate beds - I really didn't want Steinvic to get this!!


So now the goal becomes getting well before we leave for Phoenix. I'm definitely on the mend - still snorting around a little, but my energy level is way better and I'm not taking any cold medicine except Zicam now. But poor Steinvic is in the "zapped" stage of this funk and so he is still sleeping right now...or should I say, finally sleeping.


We did go out briefly last night, mostly because we'd vowed to bring the recipient of the spinach dip a serving of kraut and potatoes so he'd have luck this year, and because another friend who we haven't seen in months was going to be at our local. Plus, we were getting stir crazy from being home and just wanted to get cleaned up and feel some fresh air in our lungs.

Early on, the conversation turned to Smashburgers. Have you had one? Apparently, they are fantastic. Suddenly, Steinvic perked up and said that a hamburger sounded awesome. That isn't what we'd planned on for dinner, but as soon as I saw that he was actually interested in food, I volunteered to run and get him one, and then take us home. I picked up one for another friend of ours, too. The little restaurant was hopping...it smelled like the hamburgers my Dad would make in the skillet for us when I was a kid. All the food I saw come out of the kitchen while I waited for their carry out order looked delicious. If they'd had any vegetarian sandwich options on the menu, I'd have ordered something for myself, too! Ten minutes, $15 (not too shabby, actually, for two 1/3 lb. burgers, an order of fries and an order of haystack onions) and two carefully divided and labeled to go bags later, I was on my way back to our local to pick up my poor Steinvic and get him home. He said the burger was excellent and I hadn't really seen him eat very much since he got this cold, and he cleaned his plate, so there is your Smashburger testimonial from Steinvic!

I'm in the process of washing everything in the house and also restoring it to a pre-Christmas state. I like coming home from vacation to a well-organized house where all we have to do is take our suitcases down to our utility room and unload them into the washing mashine. So, it's a busy time but I sure don't mind...I'm feeling better now and so I've got the energy. And I can't wait to get to Phoenix to see our family and have a whole week with Steinvic. This will be the first time we've seen everyone from out there since we got married - they just couldn't make that extra trip to Ohio so late in the year and we totally understood that...not a cheap trip!

But I sure have had some crazy dreams. One productive one, though...last night, Steinvic couldn't get comfortable so we went to the basement (it's finished, lovely and his recliner is down there, and also the futon was still made up as a bed from when the kids were here...I told you, I've been working on it!) because he'd have options of where to sleep, and I could be close by in case he needed something (yep, he is really THAT sick). I saw that Young Man's Girlfriend left a necklace on the coffee table and it must have triggered something in my brain, because I had dreams about jewelry I used to own all night and when I woke up this morning, knew just where the box I packed them in was hiding the guest room. I'd completely forgotten about it. It's not valuable...just costume jewelry from when I used to work in a clothing store. I went right to the box and found some really cool things that I know I will wear again and some that I will probably give to Girlfriend and to a nice lady at work who makes her own jewelry and would enjoy taking some of the items apart and turning them into something else.


Here is one of the finds from this morning's treasure recovery:



...and yeah, that would be one of the things I'm keeping for me and plan to wear right away! Isn't it neat?

Now I'm off to put more laundry in and make something hot to drink...OH! If you find yourself sick, buy some Zicam. IT WORKS!!

Miles & Miles

This morning, my 2004 Toyota Echo's odometer read 100,000. Many of those miles are from me driving to be with Steinvic, and I'd drive them all again, 100 times over.

There are plenty of our adventures within those miles, too...a drive or two to Iowa to see Em, a trip or two to St. Louis, a drive to Nashville when Steinvic's boy was considering Belmont College... The Echo is not a fancy car by any means, but it sure does wear the miles well!

Meanwhile, my other mile-counting "vehicle" (my recumbent bike) is still getting a near daily workout. While I've missed a few days here and there this month, I have been keeping a mental calculation of the miles, and I've gone more than 180 since the first of this month! I'm still loving it...

Today, Steinvic meets with his supervisor to introduce the possibility of working most of his hours from here instead of Columbus. We are hoping and praying that she'll be open to it. Steinvic is so talented. So dedicated - 30 years there - and loyal and hardworking...I hope she will at least give this a try! If she says yes, we can begin really planning our life together and wow... WOW!! But you know...even if she doesn't say yes, we're going to work it out. That is what we do.

Sometimes it just hits me - we're getting MARRIED!

How precious are these many miles...

Dumb Dinosaurs...

Have you ever heard that even if you think you've been dreaming the same dream throughout the night, you really haven't?

Well, that's a load of crap, because last night, I had the same dumb dinosaur dream, Lionel Richie Style. (That's All. Night. Long. for those of you who haven't had that second cup of coffee yet this morning.)

WTF, dinosaurs? The basic idea was that for some reason, dinosaurs decided to re-inhabit the Earth. Suddenly, there were dinosaurs ev-er-y-where. And guess what? They didn't like what we'd done with the place. They thought our houses were for stomping. That people were for eating. That our cars were for crushing and throwing. And our phone lines were to serve as finish lines for their stupid dinosaur races. (Okay, I made that last part up, but still.)

I woke up around ten times through the night, thinking things like, "Self, you know this is a dream, because if this were for real, Obama would be making a disaster-type announcement that would play in the streets, telling us not to panic and what to do." Cue the next phase of the dream where the Obama soundtrack was repeating over and over, "Do not panic. Remain calm. Take shelter." I love you Obama, but where exactly is the Dinosaur Disaster Shelter located? Because those b*tches were vicious and there was no escaping.

I also woke around 4:00 a.m. (a lovely hour, I might add, if you're the garbage collector) to think, "If we were invaded by dinosaurs, bomber jets would just shoot them from the sky." Cue the next hour of my dream, where bomber jets began shooting the dinosaurs and, oops! A few innocent bystanders, too. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

The last half hour was all like...apocalyptic. Everything was trashed. Some Amish-looking fellow had a knife and was going to kill me or stab me or something me (guess he wasn't really Amish, huh?) and I was thinking of how to defend myself when I finally said, "That's it! I'm up!" and got up before my alarm.

I think all this was inspired by a billboard I saw on the way home from visiting my grandma. It was a ridiculously uncool picture of a T-Rex, mouth open, teeth nas-tay, hanging over the highway. (Hello, advertisers...some of us DON'T like to be startled by pictures of horrifying dinosaurs, s-h-a-r-k-s, or other toothy evil looking creatures while we're driving.)

Even still, how my brain could make an entire night of it, I don't know...

p.s. I know you're impressed with my one-minute-thirty-second dinosaur masterpiece at the top here...I'm not apologizing for it because I just had to illustrate this post some way. Signed prints available upon request.