Okay, I haven't posted for a few days. I've been busy trying to recreate the wizard school of Hogwarts for a Harry Potter party coming up in a couple of weeks. Today I've been painting the Gryffindor common room. It's been fun but exhausting at the same time.

So, let me give you a quick update. First of all, there's The Dream--probably the weirdest nightmare I've ever had. No gore, no spooks, no torture (in the traditional sense), but I felt tormented the whole time. This happened on Friday morning. I dreamt that I had a new job. It was one of those anxiety-ridden days taken to the nth degree. I wasn't sure which floor I needed to go to. In fact, I couldn't even remember the name of the business I worked for. Or even what it was, for that matter. I thought it was a publishing house. I kept riding up and down the elevator, hitting random floors. One had a restaurant. One a deli. Up and down. The building was square (much like the World Trade Centre, no doubt where that aspect came from)--although in Lexington, Kentucky, which doesn't actually have anything over 30 stories, and about five "skyscrapers" total--but when you looked out onto the floors they were circular. The business was actually on the 48th floor--which for some reason was actually rectangular and went on and on and on, a sea of cubicles and small offices. I finally found it. Heather Locklear was my supervisor. I shared an office with a blonde woman I'd never met before. Later, the officemate turned into a friend, A, who has longish blonde hair, but is a guy. At one point we went down the elevators together, and I showed him the candy mall on floor 11. He loved it. It was like a giant collection of gumball machines, but with every conceivable type of candy. On the way out of the office, I had seen a jumpsuit hanging by the elevator, with punch keys to a calculator in its stomach about where a Teletubby would have its TV. I shouted that they need to turn the keys over so you could see them better when you were actually wearing the suit. They said they would change it. So apparently the business was also into strange techno-designs. I had been invited to go to lunch by some friends from my last job, but I didn't know how long my lunch was supposed to be. I asked the owner, Herbert Hoover "call me Hoove" Something-or-other (who looked like Ross Perot), but he said whenever. But he'd also told me when he hired me that we'd be docked if we didn't take timely breaks. So I didn't go. But as I headed back to my office, I discovered Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) of Star Trek having a tryst on my desk. So, I decided to go ride the elevator some more. I went down to the 4th floor parking garage and the attendant, who was Roz from Night Court, told me that they were towing cars and that people were going to be pissed because they'd been told that they could park there. I went to check on my car. When I came back in, they were frisking people who came through the main entrance but never even looked at those of us who came into the side door. Then I went up and down the elevator some more, then headed back to the office to see if it were safe yet.

At this point I woke up. Later, when I told D about it, he said, "you know, it's still going on, you're still riding that elevator." I asked him what he meant, at which point he explained that when we dream we peek into our unconscious. Just because I woke up, that didn't mean anything had changed in my unconscious, I just didn't have access to it anymore. I'd never really thought about it that way. (Thanks, D). So, in the end, that was more unsettling than the dream itself. It had just about everything neurotic person might fear except maybe going to work naked or something like that. But it was so vivid--I recall all these details three days later, and it's just as fresh in my mind. The odd thing is that I hadn't watched TV or anything before that. I don't know why all those people wound up in my dream. I was really glad to realise that I still worked at the job I'm in now, with lots of control of my environment and surrounded by much less scary people. (You may not find Ross Perot frightening--I do, apparently). So anyway, that was Friday.

Nothing much else has happened over the weekend. I saw Riding in Cars with Boys, which was good; I suspect the book is better. I cried, I understood my mom and dad for the first time (they got married because I was on the way, which was a bigger deal in the sixties), and I wanted to slap Drew Barrymore's character for being so self-centred, too, but only because I recognised myself, and I know that at least right now, I'd probably make the same sort of mom myself. Of course, I'm working on that. :) I'm getting ready to start a year-long therapy programme on Monday nights that incorporates something called Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. I'll let you know how it goes. I've signed a confidentiality clause, so I won't be writing about my colleagues etc., just my feelings, reactions to the exercises, etc. I hoping maybe other people who have similar problems might be helped by my keeping a log. Well, that's all for now. Blog. :)