First of all, let me say that I know I suck.  I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks because life simply got in the way.

And secondly, this picture has nothing at all to do with this post. It just makes me laugh. Big Mags and the Mean Toofies. Hey, she could be her own band! ha ha ha

And thirdly, (is ‘thirdly’ a word?) this is also not the post I had planned to do, but sometimes inspiration happens in funny ways.

Like the dream I woke up in the middle of the night before last. I wish I could say this was the first time I’ve done this.

At this point in the story, a little insight into the way my mind works might be helpful here.

On any normal day, my mind works in a constant stream of chatter. And run-on sentences.

This is why I can relate so much to my friend Heather’s yellow lab, Libby. Libby does the same thing.

When Libby is outside to potty, I can sense her internal dialogue goes like this:

“Woohoo! I’m freeee, where should I go first is there anything new out here who’s car is this oh it must be her car I smell something there I like to ride in cars I wonder if she’ll take me a ride in her car [shooting a look at me, this is how I  know she is thinking this] she must have dogs I HAVE TO POOP gotta find a spot where where where where no that’s not right I don’t like this spot gotta hurry I gotta go AHHHHHHHH Unnnhhhhhhhhhh woohoo that felt great I love the way it feels after a poop where’s Bear I don’t see him gotta find Bear he might have found something cool has he found something BEAR there you are WOW what did you find gotta see!!!!….

My thoughts, fortunately, aren’t as urgent. I think I wore myself out just typing that.

So the night before last, I was in the middle of a dream.  And I happen to dream in full-blown, living color, very realistically.

Fortunately, I believe most of my dreams are just fragments of thoughts that somehow got buried under something in my brain, and they get all jumbled up and come to the surface when I sleep. Most of my dreams I can trace to a random thought from some point in the last day or so.

Sometimes people I know are in them; sometimes there are people who are representations of people I know. Once in a while a hot celebrity will pop up, and I guarantee you I will wake up right before it gets to the good part. Every. Single. Time.   And, sometimes if I don’t like the direction of the dream, I will change it. Sort of like changing the channel.

Like the other night.

So, the dream started as a murder mystery. Several people and I were on an unrecognizable college campus (I assume it was a campus, because it was older, institutional-like buildings), and one of my Realtor(r) friends, Scott, was there wearing a striped shirt. There’s a reason I remember this particular shirt so well; it’s because he had forgotten his shirts at one of our Leadership retreats, so literally the only shirt he had with him was the one on his back.

Aside from a few…um…bad-tempered moments that I might possibly have had….I’m normally a happy person by choice. So to find myself embroiled in a murder mystery was somewhat disturbing. It was like watching Anna Nicole Smith’s reality TV show: utterly painful to watch, but hard to look away.

And then, it turned out that I was one of the killers and had to figure out a way to get myself out of the mess I was in. And it turns out Scott was the investigator, and since he is a pretty smart guy, it was only a matter of time before Scott and I wouldn’t be friends anymore and I would never have to worry about cooking a meal again.

Well. That’s a pretty heavy dream which takes a lot of brainpower at 2:00 a.m. while sleeping. It looks like a change of channel is in order.

The next thing I know, I’m standing on a stage in this same building on the same campus watching someone on stage sing.  So let’s be in a pageant instead! It’s SOOO much easier and less stressful. Not.

I turn to my friend Michelle, our trainer at work, who’s standing next to me. I have about 30 seconds to make a decision before it’s my turn on stage.

“Michelle! What am I going to do? I DON’T HAVE ANY TALENT!” I’m panicking.

“Of course you do. Just go out there and sing something. You’ll be fine.” Michelle has clearly never heard me sing.

“What am I going to sing? I don’t know any songs!”

“Just pick something you know. You will be fine, it’s not a big deal.”

Telling an overachiever that something is not a big deal is like telling someone who’s wearing mis-matched shoes that no one will notice. It just doesn’t compute.

Panic, panic.

Then suddenly the light dawns. I’M A STORYTELLER! I will just do a comedic monologue.

Piece of cake.

So I launched into my monologue, stumbling a little, trying desperately to remember some of my funnier stories to share with this very serious audience who really wasn’t amused. It was mostly men, and they were all wearing lace-up dress shoes and dress pants. And one of them had on white socks. (See what I mean?)

And then I woke up.

Well, I actually woke up because I had to pee.

But I didn’t want to leave my audience hanging, so I finished the monologue first. 😀