Dream Journal: Mommy & Meth

A few weeks ago I dreamed that my mom was doing meth with Kate Bosworth.  I caught them, and she was really embarrassed and I was all “Hey, Kate Bosworth, what the fuck?!”  Because it was obviously her influence.  She’d peer-pressured my mom.  I also remember that their dealer was some highbrow author I’d read in college but I can’t for the life of me pin it down (Elie Wiesel, maybe?), and I dragged my methed-out mom to his house to be like, “Look what you did to my mom!  This is not cool Elie Wiesel (maybe)!”

This is why dreammoods.com is just about the greatest thing that has ever happened, on the internet or otherwise.  The second I woke up (and texted three people), I grabbed my laptop and clicked the bookmark to their dream dictionary.  This feature, a giant alphabetized list of common dream symbols, astonishes me every time.  I’ll log on and think, “No one else has ever dreamed they were having a mountaintop jousting match with their dentist."  Then I'll log onto Dream Moods and find mountain = obstacle, jousting = sexual conquest, dentist = concern over your appearance.  Then I get to spend all day wondering if I should change dentists, or get dressed up and make a move at my next cleaning.

The thing about using Dream Moods is you have to be able to break your dream down into searchable symbols.  With the Mommy & Meth dream, I've come up with these:  Mother, Actress, Drugs, Author.  Here's what Dream Moods has to say about that:

Mother:  To see your mother in your dream, represents the nurturing aspect of your own character. 

Actress:  To see a particular actor or actress in your dream, look at the roles they play. How you perceive them or the characters they play can provide understanding. 

Drugs:  To dream that you are in possession of or taking drugs, signifies your need for a "quick fix" or an escape from reality. 

Author:  To see an author in your dream, suggests that your mind is preoccupied with some story, essay, or report that you are working on.

Now here's the fun self-shrinkifying part where you lie in bed and wonder why you're such a weirdo.  So, the nurturing aspect of my own character is in need of a "quick fix" or escape from reality, and is choosing to do so with a woman who typically portrays...girlfriends?  Surfers?  People who could use a cheeseburger?  In terms of the author symbol, I am constantly preoccupied with something I should be writing.  What twentysomething, Williamsburg resident isn't?!  That's what we do!  We sit in Second Stop Cafe, drink fifteen agave lemonades and play Bejeweled all afternoon.  Then our dad's call and ask about the screenplay and we're like, "Oh yeah, it's pretty much done, just needs another edit."

So, today instead of Bejeweled I'm going to call up the blondest friend I can think of.  Since I don't know a meth dealer or Elie Wiesel, I'll invite her to join me at Second Stop for some lemonade and maybe a vegan blackberry scone.  I'll tell her about my screenplay, and we'll discuss her memoir - the one about growing up pretty, rich and loved, in Connecticut.  Then hopefully tonight I'll dream about trains, because that means tomorrow I'm going to get shit done.

Naming Your Blog (a lesson in sucking)

Starting a blog is one of those things that 90% of the population has either done in the last few years, or plans to do in the next few months.  Since I'm just like everyone else, and want nothing more than to be praised by the internet for my own special brand of clever, here I am.  This blog really has no theme as of yet.  I was devastated to discover that nail polish critique is already well worn territory, and I don't know if there's much of an audience for my thoughts on various frozen yogurt venues (spoiler alert, there's probably going to be a fair amount of that anyway).  But that's a secondary issue.  My first problem was what the hell to call this thing.

Not to be melodramatic, but it kind of feels like your blog name has to be the smartest, funniest, sharpest thing you ever come up with.  It has to be wry and winky, or poetic and simple, or just straight on the nose.  It's one of those things that you're always good at helping your friend with, but when it comes to naming your own baby, you freeze because it's just too damn important.  A blog.  Just a fucking blog.  There are zoo animals that have them, you're not so special.  And anyway, as with ideas, there are no more original ones out there.  Sorry, Hipster Cat is taken.

When I sat down (read: sprawled, half-dressed across an unmade bed at 11am on a Sunday) to name this amorphous baby of mine, my brain spat out some serious un-cleverness.  Everything was either waaaay to grand or waaaay to simple to not have been used already.  Here are a few of the dullest gems:

1.  Paris Green
Um, what?  Is that...a thing?  This sounds like something you name your celebrity poetry collection, if you're Chloe Sevigny or Ali Lohan.  A few hours after coming up with this dud I realized it came from a line I read in a Chuck Palahniuk book one summer when I was lazing around my aunt's house in France, doing nothing but eating crusty bread, and taking long walks past fields of dairy cows.  That kind of behavior will make you romanticize anything, to the point where you can read a profoundly brutal novel and come out of it thinking only that "paris green" is the most charming coupling of words you've ever seen.  Maybe so, but it's still a puke-worthy blog name.

2. Things Are Weird  
Stuff is Funny/Things I Think are Weird…all those cop out names basically just say “Get ready to laugh at my super smart comments on whatever I want, you lucky ducks!”  Unacceptable.  And, I’m sure, already taken by some eighth grader who’s blogging about the irony of water or something. 

3.  Melsey Killer
Yeah, that’s just the first letters of my first and last names switched around.  I wasn’t really trying at this point.

So, here we are at Second Favorites.  Having second favorite things is something we rarely discuss after we finish first grade and people stop inquiring about our color preferences.  But I do think it’s one of those funny little internal realities that always stays with us.  I don’t really plan on blogging about it, it’s not as interesting as a cat in a kafiya, but I hope as a name it’s sassy/different/smartypants enough to keep you reading.  And if it's not then maybe the yogurt reviews will.