- Joined
- Sep 20, 2016
After years of not having high school dreams, I suddenly had a series of them when I was around 45. Usually, I'd be in a class, sitting at one of those stupid armrest-style desks, waiting for the teacher to appear so we could take a math exam. Everybody was quiet, and the atmosphere was one of nervous anticipation. I would feel stupid and self-conscious for being back in high school, when I was old enough to be everybody's mom; it didn't help that I suck at math, and hadn't studied any math at all since going back to college to finish a degree fifteen years earlier. I didn't even know what kind of math it was, and I didn't have a calculator, only a pencil.I keep having a dream where I am my current age with my big boy job and college degree, but have ended up back in high school because I never got my diploma.
I rarely manage to get lucid in dreams, but after I'd had this dream about half a dozen times, it was annoying the shit out of me. In the dream, I'd think, "Oh shit, not this again." Finally, one night, I got lucid enough to say to myself, in the dream, "I don't need to be here! I graduated from high school 28 years ago, and it doesn't matter that I don't know this math--I don't need to be here," and got up and left. I did that twice, and the dream stopped for good.
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Anyway, last night's dream was a doozy. I went to the very first live music event allowed in my city since the lockdowns started. It was a country singer, and while I'm not a big country fan, I liked this guy well enough, and was just so thrilled to go hear live music again, I didn't care what kind of music it was. I got there early to grab a good seat, expecting it to be packed.
The venue was an auditorium that looked like a large university lecture hall--the kind built in the '70s and early '80s with brown brick walls. There were knee-high concrete risers where seats or desks would have been bolted, but no seats--you either sat on the edge of each riser, or stood.
I entered through a door at the lowest level of the auditorium, leading to the area in front of the stage. There were't many people there--maybe 150, all told, in an auditorium that could comfortably fit maybe 1000 standing people--which surprised me. But I assumed too many people were still afraid of Covid-19 to turn out.
And for some reason, they weren't socially distancing and spreading out at all. Instead, they were all tightly clustering on the risers to stage left, as far up against the wall and as tightly as they could pack themselves. Newcomers would go higher to find a spot as close to the wall as possible, rather than spreading out toward the center of the auditorium.
Since it was close to Halloween, costumes were encouraged, but with the exception of a couple of kids running around, everybody's attempts were sad and uninspired. The audience seemed tense and unhappy; you'd think they'd be excited to be out of the house and going to a show, but they seemed miserable.
I climbed the steps on the left side of the auditorium, just people-watching and checking out the venue because I still had time to kill, and it was obvious I'd get a good spot to watch the performance. As I did so, I heard people muttering that the president was supposed to make an appearance before the show, and nobody was happy about it. I assumed it was a stupid rumor; why would he be there, of all places?
About halfway up the steps I wandered over to the right side of the hall. There was almost nobody over there but a bunch of men in suits, apparently costumed as Trump and three or four Secret Service agents. But they were just standing around casually, with "Trump" watching the crowd, and the "Secret Service agents" talking quietly amongst themselves--they barely looked up as I approached.
The guy dressed as Trump was wearing one of those ugly rubber full-face Trump masks. But I noticed he was tall, and had the right body type, posture and attitude, and was in a good suit with the right tie--however shitty the mask was, his body language and presentation was convincingly Trumpian, and I wanted to compliment him on that.
But as I got closer, I could get a better glimpse through the eyeholes of the mask, and realized that it wasn't just some regular guy dressed in a Trump costume, but rather Trump himself, dressed in a Trump costume. Which struck me as the most hilarious fucking thing, because who else would Donald Trump dress up as for Halloween, but himself?
I walked straight up to him, offered my hand, and said, "Mr. President, thank you for being here tonight; I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I'm voting for you because I think you're doing a decent job." He seemed a little surprised as he took my hand and shook it, but genuinely delighted, too. We spoke briefly, and he was very genial, and not arrogant, as I expected him to be. It was a pleasant encounter, and as I walked away afterward I was in a very good mood.
I did wake myself up IRL laughing over the Trump in a Trump costume thing, because that was some seriously funny shit.