Dreams

ONE:
I dreamed of stairways. I can't remember what it was exactly that was so important, only my feeling of frantic desperation. "They're upstairs!" Bruce declared urgently. We seemed to be in a spacious back stage area of some theatre. I quickly turned to the nearest set of stairs and started up them as fast as I could run. Was there a performance going on?
My memory holds only snatches of my thoughts during this dream; there wasn't so much thinking as there was feeling. A feeling of panic rose in me with every step. Gravity seemed to be working against my body and it was becoming increasingly difficult to reach the top. The top was stretching further and further away. Would I reach it?
I did reach the top. But just as soon as my foot and the last step met I found confusion. It was just a solid wall. There was nowhere to go. "There's nothing up here!" I called down the stairs. Why, I wondered in frustration, is there even a stairway here at all if it leads to nothing? What is the point of that?
Quickly I rushed back to the bottom, feeling even more frantic. I noticed that Bruce had also just come down a flight of stairs. "Nothing up there," he said. We tried stairway after stairway, feeling more and more rushed, meeting wall after wall. The entire time my brother called repeatedly, "They're upstairs!"
The area seemed to become crowded with staircases. There were so many sets of steps, but which one led to the next floor? On and on and on, forever and ever and ever...
END DREAM

TWO
I was still living in my green house on Woodward with Andrew and Dustin, and it was time for work. I felt especially cheerful and arrived in the dining hall singing loudly and calling, "Good morning, hello!" to everyone in the kitchen. But when I reached the time clock I noticed that something wasn't right...
Am I in my pajamas? I asked myself reviewing my outfit. No, that can't be right. I got dressed before I came to work, didn't I? But I couldn't remember getting dressed, and I was in fact still in my PJ's. There I was standing in the middle of the kitchen with my co-workers, wearing only a black gown and a head scarf. No shoes or socks, no bra...no nothing.
Feeling embarrassed and wondering if anyone had noticed I approached my boss. "Kim," I began apologetically, "I'm so sorry, but I forgot my work uniform. Could I run home real quick and change? It'd only take a few minutes." Kim seemed distracted and unsurprised by this request; she only turned to look at me from her desk briefly. "Sure."
As quickly as possible I ran down the hill toward the Johnson Center, across Cleveland Avenue, and back home to change. Once in the house, I bounded up the stairs to my messy room and started to root through piles of clothes for my work uniform.
I returned to work still feeling embarrassed. I'm so stupid, I thought to myself, how could I come to work without my uniform? I hope Kim wasn't mad...
But right before I clocked in I realized something else: I had on my work pants and my work shoes but not my shirt or hat. I had come in only half of my uniform now! Feeling more embarrassed and thoroughly irritated with myself for having to clock in late for work, I returned home a second time to change.
This time I came back to work with no shoes, and by now I was somehow hours late clocking in. No one besides myself seemed to be taking notice of these blunders, or miss me working with them even, but I became more and more upset. I kept returning home and back to work again and again with my uniform incomplete.
Finally I made up to the dining hall in full dress, ready to clock in, hours late. Right when I was about to clock in, someone pointed out to me that it was my day off and I didn't need to clock in.
END DREAM
I awoke to the sound of my phone ringing. My boss Kim was calling.

I wrote this post for Liv. <3