I know, I haven’t been too good about keeping this up. I have dreams, (obviously) more often then once every six months, but what seems to be happening lately is that they happen say Friday or Saturday night, and then by the time I get back to my computer to write them down on Monday I’ve forgotten most of the fine details. I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to make blog posts via my cellphone, so that I always have access, but so far nothing that looks as secure as I would like.

Anyway, so Friday night I had a dream. I guess you could say it was a bit of a retro dream, as it was occurring with a younger version of myself. Essentially, a college aged Ishtar, who as you may or may not have heard by now was not always the nicest person ever. I think there were four basic reasons behind these dreams:

  1. I just reconnected with quite a few old friends from that time period
  2. Smokie’s “Living next Door to Alice” was stuck in my head – as the dream plot seems to sort of follow the plot of that song to a degree (this is not the first time that song has gotten stuck in my head BTW, it also features in 3/15/09’s “Song of the Day“)
  3. We had a TBA Movie night planned the following day, in which we were showing the extended version of “That Thing You Do!”, many elements of which also appeared in the dream
  4. I had Chili’s Garlic Shrimp Again, which as we know from the previous Dream Journal entry “Weirdest Dreams… EVER!” on 4/14/08, is never really the best plan

This dream featured myself (obviously) Cybele Dupuis, and two other people named Mandi and Tom.

All four of us worked at an Amusement park, most likely Amalgam City amusement park; though if it was it was smaller than scale than usual, or the dream really only emphasised one very small section of the park. Mandi was in charge of that “Horse Race” game at the Midway; Cybele was a lifeguard at the swimming pool/water park; Tom was in charge of that “Ring the Bell” game at the Midway; and I was in charge of the batting cages (which was one stall over from Tom).

The premise is that it is was Cybele and my(that grammar seems so wrong) first day on the job. Tom and Mandi had already worked there for a while and were dating. Mandi and Tom were leaving at the end of summer to move across the country; Mandi was going to school out there and Tom I guess was supposed to keep her company.

Most of the time, during breaks or after work, I hung with Cybele. Sometimes Mandi, whom Cybele had become friends with. Actually Mandi was very nice, and in a way I guess you could say I sort of befriended her as well. However during the work hours, partially because he was the only other person to talk to (besides customers) and mostly because he was a very handsome blond-haired blue-eyed guy, I hung out/talked with Tom. It was all that sort of innocent but yet not kind of banter (much like the aforementioned film – scenes involving Guy & Faye) where you know you joke and laugh and there’s obviously chemistry but because of the pre-existing relationships it also has to skirt no further beyond that platonic level.

So this is sort of the bit where the song comes in: the main difference is that in the dream version the two people are already dating rather than the male part secretly being in love with the main female (Alice/Mandi). All the other bits like the main female moving away and the secondary female having a crush on the male and then getting her chance in the end all follow suit.

It got to be around the end of summer/the dream. it was Tom and Mandi’s last day working at the park before they were to move. Only Tom and Mandi had had a fight over something. She wouldn’t even tell Cybele what.. or at least not with me standing right there. I gave her a hug and everything, since I wouldn’t be seeing her again.. but it seemed sort of distant and cold. I put it out of my mind convincing myself it was either because we were not close friends, or maybe that it was just painful to her that she wouldn’t be seeing us again.

Cybele and I walked back across the park… chatting about stuff; mostly the thing with Mandi and Tom moving; and she kind of hints that she’s on to me. That you know I’d miss Tom more than I’d miss Mandi. I agree, but profess that although it was extremely hard for me to do so I did the best that I could not to interfere. Cybele joked that considering that I didn’t normally have qualms about stealing other people’s boyfriends, that yeah I had behaved myself pretty well.

Cybele and I sat down on a bench. I was wishing I had at least gotten a chance to say goodbye to Tom as well, when I saw him running by. I thought to myself “oh he’s probably trying to catch up with Mandi”, until he stopped dead turned around and then sat on my lap to give Cybele her “goodbye” hug. Meanwhile I was dying because hey, guy that I have a huge crush on sitting in my lap, woohoo! Or at least I was thinking that, until it got better and he turned to me and kissed me. And not like a sweet little goodbye kiss either, like a full-on Hollywood movie-scene kiss. The sort of kiss I suspect no real people on earth have ever had (or at least I haven’t) where everything is just perfect and magical. And then I woke up! Though I did come out of the dream with some sort of basic understanding that the fight had been about me, and that Tom didn’t end up leaving after all.

So after the fact, as I am writing the dream down for the journal in fact. I think the male may in fact be (in my minds eye) a more grown up version of my middle school crush, Tommy Hurford. For those that haven’t already heard this story; Tommy Hurford Was in only one of my classes (being a year above me in school) which was activity period. Activity period usually occurred last period on Fridays, and I think was just supposed to be a wind down before the weekend. You could choose from a number of different clubs/activities; and the one we were in happened to be Dungeons & Dragons. I pretty much crushed on him the entire year… and of course since I had to sit directly across from him at a small table throwing dice in his general direction, it gave me an excuse to sort of oogle him.  It didn’t help that later in the school year he played the part of Frederic in the school musical “The Pirates of Penzance” (and had I known I totally would have tried out, I do a pretty mean Mabel if I do say so myself. Maybe Denise {my college roommate} may recall me belting out “Poor wand’ring one” now and again?). I’m not going to bother with a long synopsis of the musical/operetta, if you’ve never seen it; but to put it in a more modernist perspective: Frederic = swooniest pirate character ever (more-so than Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow) though it’s possible considering my first exposure to such, that my opinion may be biased. ;-)

It was the last day of class, which also happened to be a Friday, so we had activity period. It was kind of a cool day, as a special treat the DM bent the rules a bit and allowed us to have Gryphons for our campaign. Everyone was giddy for summer break. Tommy and I were having spectacularly good banter.. and then the period was over. We all said goodbye, and proceeded to clean out our lockers etc. Friends came by and gave hugs or whatever, or at least the ones you weren’t going to see later that day or that summer. Tommy came by and.. snatched my keys! Yes I know, how very middle school; showing a girl you’re interested by nicking her stuff!  In a very bold move (for a seventh grader) he claimed he had put them down the front of his pants and that I was not to get them back unless I came and got them myself.

In my lifetime I have been both increments of brash& bold (like when I introduced myself to ex-BF Brian McGaunn by jumping into his lap in a club and/or similarly my ex-BF Mark Townshend in an even more direct manner, but I’m trying to keep it PG: so never-mind that) and excruciatingly shy (lusting after my ex-bf Gates for what seemed like an indeterminable time period before someone else finally convinced him he should ask me out). This occasion was the latter (though when replaying it over in my mind for the last 24 years I often wondered how it would have been the other way around). I turned a rather bright shade of scarlet and could hardly make words of one syllable for a good 20 minutes before Tommy finally, out of pity, returned my keys.

I spent a lot of that summer with my friend who conveniently lived two blocks from Tommy’s house . We’d ride bikes around the neighborhood and I’d always hope to catch a glimpse of him or better yet that he’d be outside and we’d “bump into” him and have a conversation. It never happened, but I didn’t fret about it too much, after all there was always next year at school.

Except there wasn’t. My parents moved from Reading to North Andover. They wanted me to start the school year at the new school, rather than start at one school and finish at another. So even though we hadn’t moved yet, my parents drove me to North Andover and I never saw Tommy again.

I know a lot of information there considering I’m not even sure the two Toms are supposed to be the same, but thinking back on the context of everything that happened the more and more likely it seems that unconsciously the real history was in fact giving the story a much better ending in my dream life. That’s sort of the thing that stinks about the “one that got away”. In your head it always plays out so much more romantically than it probably ever would have been in real life. You spend most of your life with the what if, despite knowing that time and/or personal difference or whatever would have indubitably made that relationship no more or less romantic than any other one that did get its moment in the sun.