production/editorial/dream/space

While sleeping late the other day, I dreamed that I was sleeping late. I got up (in the dream) still groggy, to find a house full of guests for dinner. Without brushing my teeth or hair, I walked/staggered into the living room, where about a dozen people I didn't recognize were about to sit down for a meal. It seems there is a holiday I had not anticipated. There were several small tables placed around the room rather than everyone sitting at one large table, and I found myself sitting across from three people I didn't know, still half-asleep, rumpled and unwashed, with a stale taste in my mouth. Everyone was on their best behavior and tried to be a good sport.

I left the dinner early and went with a male friend to a coffee shop where I had never been before. The friend introduced me to the waitress, who gave me a plate of eggs and a manuscript to read. I let the eggs sit there on the counter - we were sitting at a counter, not a table or a booth - while I started to read the manuscript. The friend on my left and the waitress on my right watched me read. After the first page, I said it seemed to be a "transcription" of some sort. The waitress glanced up at the friend and took away the plate of eggs, saying, "I'll get you some Western eggs." Or maybe it was "western eggs." My friend nodded knowingly. I interpreted this exchange as recognition that I was qualified to do the work on the manuscript, whatever that was, and that whatever jazzed-up Western omelette she brought me would be better than the plain eggs that sat there flat on the plate getting cold.

A couple of nights later I dreamed I was riding in a big car. My co-worker Meso-chick was driving a big old American car, like a 1975 Lincoln Continental or Chrysler New Yorker, with huge sumptuous beige or tan leather seats, a wide dash, and a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. Meso-chick seems to know where she's going, and she has a map, of course, and a sense of direction. For some reason I'm sitting in the back seat, and no one is sitting next to her up front, so I began to wonder why I'm not riding shotgun.

Finally I decided to climb over the console and settle into the front passenger seat, and I saw out of the corner of my eye someone travelling alongside us on the shoulder of the road. At first I thought they were in a car, but when I looked again they appeared to be on a bicycle, and I thought, wow, they're going really fast. Because the person beside us was keeping pace perfectly, I inferred that she (a tall female unknown to me) was following along on purpose. When I looked again, she wasn't on a bicycle but was running or walking alongside the big car, which had by then slowed down quite a bit. We were driving through desert-like terrain. Very mysterious. Or transparently symbolic of - something I'm not seeing. Anyone?