dreaming

I've been having the weirdest dreams. A couple of nights ago, I dreamed that somehow my Ph.D. graduation (scheduled for December 14) was mixed with a high school reunion. There were several people I finished high school with--Hank Cooksey, Becky Thompson, Rhonda Gough, Kay Oxley, others--who were there and they were not impressed with my accomplishment of getting a doctorate. Basically, their message was, "If you can do it, anyone can do it." I guess that is probably a reflection of how I felt in high school--anything I could do well was discounted and treated lightly. Of course, if I couldn't do something, then that was a big deal. But is that any different from how most people feel about their high-school days? Looking back from the "mature" perspective of a 56-six-year-old woman (who long ago should have stopped worrying about high school), I know that everyone there, including the most popular, were nevertheless full of anxiety and low self-esteem. At least, that's what all the psychology textbooks say. Somehow, though, I feel that some of the kids I went to high school with were never afflicted with low self-esteem. Or at least not much of it.

I'm still recovering from my fall this past Wednesday evening. The bruises finally showed up on my arm. The bruising must be deep inside because the arm really hurts, yet the bruising is faint and yellow-green.

The esteemed hubbie and I spent the day yesterday looking at furniture. He keeps trying to insist that we get rid of furniture before we get new furniture. I don't agree. Yes, it's just the two of us 99.9 percent of the time, but I don't want my den to look like an interrogation chamber. He wants us to get just two recliners and be done with it. I want a reclining sectional sofa so that other people could join us in the room. We do have his mom visit for sometimes a couple of weeks at a time, and the boys and wives are talking about coming for Christmas.

Back to dreams: Another dream (actually, two of them) concerned the tv character Monk (Tony Shalhoub). He and I were solving crimes together. Yet at one point we were having to deal with a baby with a nasty diaper. Monk is famous for his OCD, and I can't imagine that the character would ever touch a poopy diaper, much less put it in a washing machine full of other clothing, which was what happened in my dream. One of these days, perhaps they'll figure out not only HOW we dream, not only WHY we dream, but how and why we dream what we do. To be honest, though, I kind of like the surprises my dreams provide. I'm not really sure I'd want to know the answer to the mystery.

I'm jumping around a lot today, which is sort of how my mind is (not) working at present. But hey, this is my blog. No one's grading it. And if they are, then they need to get a life.

Yesterday as we were leaving one furniture store, the sales clerk (who was with a female customer) asked us how we'd enjoyed our shopping experience, or some such question. I responded that it was "a surfeit of riches." Then I smiled and walked on, but the female customer seized my arm and asked, "What does that word mean? Surfeit?" I told her, and she was delighted. She likes to spring big words on her students. (Apparently she is a Language Arts teacher at either junior or high school level.) I forget sometimes that my vocabulary is a bit richer than the average person's, but I know it isn't that much bigger. I'm often floored by the vocabularies of people in my writers' group. However, I suspect that a few of them rely a bit too heavily on a thesaurus.

The weather is set to turn much cooler after tomorrow night. We've had record highs for this time of October. Even though it was hot (89 or 90) yesterday, and very humid, I know I will long for this heat in a month or two.

I listened to my two Celtic Woman cd's in the car going to and from school on Thursday. I can hardly wait until November 3 for their concert. They put on one heck of a show. It's got to be better than that dismal performance of 1984.

Okay, I guess it's time to move on. Do something productive. Maybe. Dr. S.