Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Dream Adventures

Last night I spent time doing something I haven’t done in a while; chillin with Katie, waching InuYasha, drinking spiked hot cocoa, and relaxing. One, it’s cold out now, so a hot cocoa treat now and again is so very nice. Two, it’s been a while since I had the time to sit and watch anime. I need to organize myself better (or maybe my life, as biologically my fingers and toes are all exactly where they are supposed to be). Three, I needed a night off. I should have been cleaning up my messes in the house, cleaning the bathroom, dusting, and preparing a load of laundry to have clean stuff for my trip this weekend. I didn’t want to do any of that. I rested, relaxed, gossiped and watched, and then I went to bed early.

This morning my brain tricked me into sleeping in. It’s not my fault. I woke up, looked at the clock and my brain whispered, “you have work you should do at home, so you are not distracted by things in the office.” I thought back at it, “ok, that sounds like a good plan, I’ll sleep a little longer, get up, make tea, and work.” And back to sleep I went. I dreamed.

I dreamt that in downtown Minneapolis there was a narrow, tall door covered with Egyptian Hieroglyphs. It was painted bright red, and in a wall of dark grey stone. Not everyone could see it, or if they could, they paid it no mind – it was like they thought it was a decorative part of the wall rather than a door. I knew however, that it opened, and there were stairs that went down into the catacombs. I knew the way to open the door was to look at it and imagine it as not being there. Imagine, like the Road Runner in all the Warner Brothers cartoons, that I could go through the door even though it was solid. So with that thought in mind, I went to the seam, and pushed. The doors opened, and down I went. Down the stairs was a large room, lit by lights from the ceiling that I couldn’t see – natural light perhaps? It was bright, warm, yellow light. Through the walls by the stairs and through parts of the upper walls I saw flexible piping (like that which connects the back of one’s dryer to the outside) and copper piping, as though the city’s sewer and piping systems ran though the catacombs. I commented on them to those I was with – suddenly Erin and Katie had appeared. We walked further into the room, wondering how no one knew this place was there. I turned to the wall directly to the left of the bottom of the stairs, and there was the English Language Alphabet laid out on tiles that moved up and down. Some tiles had one letter, some two. I briefly wondered how the English letters ended up in a catacomb full of hieroglyphs, but knew that they were the key to opening the next door, which was down a few more stairs and on my left as I faced the letters. I knew the letters had to be moved in the order of the alphabet, and if there were two letters on a tile, it had to be moved twice, in order. So an A-B tile would go up, then down, but an A-D tile should not be touched. I also knew (somehow) that there was a ratio between the two move tiles and the one move tiles. I began the puzzle (there were a lot of tiles to choose from, and in no particular order) to make the alphabet so I could open the door and go to the next room. Erin was helping me, we were on K, L, M and she was moving them, when I began to wake up. I had just determined the solution for the rest of the tiles when I was snatched from sleep.

Upon looking at the clock, my brain reminded me that I couldn’t work from home because my computer for work was at work, and I had really better get a move on to make it to work. The only thing I can think of to relate this dream to what happened yesterday is seeing a hieroglyph from Egypt showing a pictograph of a man with a withered leg. I was in a microorganism lecture, and the instructor was discussing polio, it’s long history, and how people related to it even when they didn’t know about micro-organisms and their functions. My hours of InuYasha may have added the adventure element to the dream. I was grumpy when I woke up though, I wanted to see what was in that next room. Perhaps tonight.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Restless

I'm restless. I sit down, five minutes later I get back up. I try to concentrate on a book or my knitting. I can't. I don't know what it is, but something is nagging on me. I can feel it, deep in my brain. It manifests in my back - it's all knotted up, in my stomach - it's been upset or full of butterflies (and sometimes both) all day, in my head - I can't keep my thoughts from running at a million miles an hour and I have a slight headache, and in my feet - they have the restless feet syndrome. I was going to climb when I finished work today, but I feel ill, so I went to the grocery and came home. I decided to try baking, sometimes that works. I made a pan of chocolate - chocolate chip cookie bars and a pan of peanut butter rice krispie treats. Still restless. (And no, I don't intend to eat them all myself, they are for a meeting at work tomorrow.)

I don't think it's my job, I'm doing well now that I understand what is expected of me, and I'm enjoying the challenges. I don't think it's the Packers or the Twins, though the Twins could have won a game during the less to day s to make me less anxious. I don't think it's my 'home' life either. I'm caught up on bills, I do have laundry to do, but laundry has never before placed me in such a state. Right now I'm to a point where my tummy feels OK again, so I think I'm going to get my running things on and stretch quick and then head out for a 30 min jog. Even typing this didn't help bring to the surface the root of my restlessness, so maybe running will. If that doesn't help, maybe simply the fresh air of the gorgeous day we're having will do the trick. I have to figure something out though, it's driving me nuts!