The Disney Infection

My dream life and my waking life seem determined to be at odds with one another. Dreams that weave webs holding me in deep sleep reveling in their silken embrace seem tainted and full of thorns when I wake.

Even thinking back on them some part of my mind is soothed, it croons, my pulse quickens while the rest of me recoils in something near disgust. My cheeks flush, my heart races and I feel like I need to put my brain in the shower.

All of it from dreams that would, at most, be rated R and more likely PG13. Somehow I have become infected with Disney script writers in my subconscious. Short of the obligatory Disney need for parental death, my dreams could all easily be edited to fit into Anastasia or Beauty and the Beast (I'm the beast, btw). If we were going to keep the R rating, though, I suppose it gets a bit more interesting, but it's still horribly formulaic.

It's almost always Him in them. Mr. Accepting of all of my flaws, ready to love me regardless. He's quiet and contemplative, that nerd thing that so many intelligent women swoon over. A professorial countenance, with the awkwardness of a gangly young man, mixed with the promising glint of mischief in his eye. In short: smart, vulnerable, understanding, and fun.

Hmm, who should we cast for this part? A younger Gary Oldman, possibly? And what about my part, what actress should get my role. It's a dream, after all, so how about a chubby going on fat Jody Foster.

Ok, good, we have our two main characters. Let's put them on a cruise ship, each with an inattiventive significant other. Neither of them are married, but, perhaps not far from it.

The scene: A fairly nice bar, dark wood, a couple of portholes on the far side of the room that really look out on one of the decks. The room is nearly empty, post the dinner crowed and pre the night time clientel. A bored looking waitress folds napkins at a table and talks to the bartender who's slicing limes at the far end of the bar. The lights are dim, and there's a jazz ensemble taking their time setting up on the small stage.

She sits at the bar doodling on a napkin, a large mixed drink halfway gone near at hand. She's wearing a full length black skirt, a black raw silk tailored shirt open over a delicate lacy cream top with a scooped neck. Jewels glint from her left hand and right wrist. She is terribly over dressed and clearly a sad case.

He comes in wearing black pressed suit slacks, a crisp white shirt with wrinkles pressed into the back, the top button undone and his tie loosely knotted three buttons below it. He puts his dinner jacket over the back of the barstool and orders a beer.

And so they meet, and cheer each other up with a few shared smiles and noncommittal chit chat. It isn't anything of note, but there's a small spark and inwardly chastising herself for again noticing how the corer of the right side of his mouth goes up a moment before he smiles, how his hands look as he holds his beer...she finishes her drink and leaves.

LoL Catz Dream

I am in a box, typing. The box is on a bed in a room I'm not familiar with.

I can see over his shoulder as we chat in IMs. I type to him about how odd my new vantage point is. In a moment of optimism, friendship, amusement I come out of the box and stand over him and say, "See, odd how close I am, isn't it?". He goes silent and I know I've screwed up. Damn it. I lamely try to joke, but his fingers are still on his keyboard.

I retreat, heartsick, back to my box. The four top flaps lay open. I change the background I'm sitting on, trying to find something to match my mood...something to ease that horrible feeling of having over stepped, having embarrassed myself and risked a friendship I thought was closer than it apparently was.

Eventually I give up and lay on my stomach, knees bent and ankles crossed behind me, on the bare cardboard. I dig up a pen, a blue ballpoint, and sooth myself with the feel of sliding the along the forgiving bottom of the box. A face starts to emerge as I sketch, nothing noteworthy, the kind of doodle so many envelope backs have seen before.

I can hear typing, he's moving again, I lay my head on my arm and watch the pen glide over the brown fur of the cardboard. I half hope for the ping that will mean he's typing to me, that this moment of awkwardness is passed. I listen to the tippity tap of finger pads on plastic letters and sigh to my core. Glancing over to the screen I wonder if I should log out, go do something else.

The room grows quiet, the incandesant overhead light goes out, and with a sinking heart I start to muster myself to look at the screen where I know I will now see his empty chair and dark monitor as my desktop. Closing my eyes in preperation to sitting up I feel a shadow cross over the top of the box.

I hold my breath, the feel of the shadow comes back, cast over me in the twilight of the room. Hesitant fingers touch my hair, I stumble over words as I whisper an apology. He asks what I'm drawing, I write "nothing" under the woman's face and he says he likes it.

I laugh tentitively, still feeling for where we stand. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wish I'd washed my hair before logging in, or changed out of my pajamas. I wonder what I would see if I were to turn and look into his face. What will his eyes hold? Curiosity over comes resurvation and I look up into familiar brown eyes.

It's quiet, he leans over the box, he's taller than I remember. One arm, the one that reached into my space...that touched my hair, rests on the lip of the box. I apologize again, he shakes his head and smiles, lips closed. It doesn't seem to reach his eyes, but that's ok, there's something else there to see. I offer a small smile, a truce. It's accepted with a look, he touches the arc my cheek with his thumb. A decision slowly forms behind his eyes...he bends over the lip of the box and I raise my head and he kisses me. It's not passionate, but it isn't chaste and I can see more waiting in his gaze. I lift my head up to him in acceptance of whatever is next.

Then quietly he whispers with a grin, "friendship fail"