The Dream I Had Last Night

I had a dream last night and want to tell you about it.

If you stayed the night with me in my bed, then I roll over onto my side and look at you from my pillow. I tend to forget to take my makeup off, so I have black smudged eyes. I also have very small stubble on my lips and chin in the morning—unless, of course, that destroys the fantasy for you, in which case I look like women in the movies when they first wake up with perfect makeup and salon styled hair.

If you are just meeting up with me, either from your stay in the guest room across the hall, or from wherever you’ve been, I suggest we take our coffee and tea in the Filtmore Room, which is a sort of conservatory lounge on the first floor near the courtyard.

In any case, once you’ve decided on our present circumstance, I begin telling the dream.

We’re staying at hotel. I’m not sure where. It feels like it could be somewhere in Virginia, but I don’t know that it is. My parents are there. My sister is there. I’m not sure if my kids are there. Lila is not there.

You ask me who Lila is if you want, but I don’t answer and keep on recounting the dream.

We occupy three rooms in the hotel: two upstairs and one downstairs. The two upstairs are adjoining.

When it’s time to checkout, my dad and I go to the front desk. The lobby is quite spacious with a half-dome glass wall and some plush seating. The service desk is rather small—like a bit shorter than you would expect probably, and it has no clear side as facing, so the agent can operate from either side of it.

The agent, she’s looks about my age, which means she’s probably a bit younger—thirties, maybe. Dyed blonde hair that looks good at a glance but you can see up close that it’s not great. Heavy makeup, but not too garish. She’s wearing the ruby red blazer of the hotel, which has an emblem on its left breast. She asks if everything was okay, and my dad starts to complain about how the billing is messed up and about how the room service was quite bad.

He has a fractured mind, so I am carefully reviewing everything he is saying to ensure that he is correct and what is being said is accurate.

The agent is well-aware, though, and apologizes, adding that our bill has already been substantially reduced to compensate for the inconvenience.

My dad seems to realize then that he still has to pay, and looks confused about how to do so.

I step in and ask her to put it on my card, even though I’m not sure I can cover it. I ask how much the charges come to, and she says it’s ten dollars.

I ask her to make sure I heard her right, and she confirms that it is only ten dollars. I wonder why they wouldn’t just comp the whole amount if they’re going that low, but whatever. I say that is great, that’s fine, and she runs my card on a tablet terminal. I don’t sign, and she gives me a print receipt on yellow paper—similar to the carbon copy credit card receipts last seen in the late 20th Century.

I thank her, then lead my dad back to our rooms.

Okay, at least my youngest was there, I say, because he wanted to play golf.

Dad went back to where Mom was—in their room, I guess—and Fox came over to me and gave me a hug, said he’s excited about playing golf.

I say that’s great, I just need to change, and then we can go.

But when I get back to the rooms, I realize a few things—the most startling of which is that no one has packed a thing. Also, somehow we have managed to accumulate a shitton of new things, and the possibility of getting any of this done in a reasonable amount of time seems impossible—so impossible that I immediately consider hiring movers to do it for us. We can’t really afford that, I think, but I might do it anyway. Then I imagine how pissed off my dad will be about it, so I decide to try to find a way to do it ourselves first and just keep the movers option in my back pocket.

In the process of trying to figure it out, I remember that we have already turned our room keys in. So once we’ve left a room, we can’t get back in. I go to the downstairs room and pass the pool on the way there.

Near the pool, there’s this irritating guy who is trying to talk to me. I can’t tell if he’s fucking with me or wants to fuck me, but either way, I’m not really interested, so I steer clear of him, and go into the downstairs room.

My friend Reg is there. I’m not sure how long he’s been here, if he’s just visiting us, or if he’s also staying here, but he is willing to help me try to sort out this whole packing situation. Together we go through all the shit that’s there, pull it out, and put it on the beds. He initially thought that was a bad idea, that I should just pack it from the closets and wherever the stuff was, but once I had it all gathered together, he agreed it was a good strategy.

My dad showed up around then and was upset that we hadn’t packed yet. I asked if he had packed yet, and he said he wasn’t sure. So I suggest that he go and check, and he does.

I begin to get hungry, and decide to go to the food court, which is near the lobby in the main building of the hotel.

Once I’m there, I realize the shop is about to close. The cashier is super chatty and is name-dropping Hollywood shows he’s written for and shit like that. I find it tiring, but nod and listen, then give him my order. He kind of fucks it up, but then gets it right. But he won’t take the last portion of my order, the part that’s for my sister and her boyfriend.

He explains that the kitchen is about to close. I ask why would he take my order, then? And he says that the stuff I’ve ordered is pretty common, that they already have a lot of it on hand, and that I’ll have to wait maybe an hour for them to come back for the rest. I say he hasn’t even heard the rest, at which time he seems to kind of get the logic of it, and goes ahead and takes the rest. Then he’s like, oh yeah, we have a ton of that. I roll my eyes a little but am glad it’s done.

Later, back upstairs, my friend Buckhorn arrives. I haven’t seen him in a minute, like since before my first kid. I introduce him to my dad, who is kind in his way, but it’s also clear to me he doesn’t know what to make of him and that he will likely forget anyway.

I explain the mess to Buckhorn, who makes a typically sarcastic kind of a joke, but then immediately starts trying to help me figure it out.

I sigh, and then say, There’s a bunch of other stuff, too, but it’s really incoherent and about vampires and things, so let’s just end it there.

What did you dream about?

Play procedures:

• Write down your dream from last night. If you’re like, oh, 95% of people I talk to, you’ll give me that line about how you don’t remember your dreams. Probably you drink too much, if that’s the case, but anyway, just do your best. Even a few words to try and describe a vague impression. If you do this each night, you will begin to remember your dreams more readily. If you’re like 65% of the people I say this to, you’ll say you don’t want to remember your dreams, and that’s fine. You do you, babe.
• If you’d like to try your hand at analyzing my dream, be my guest. Tell me about it, if you want. And if you liked reading my dream, you can read a whole mess of them here and here.