Hey remember how
you don't care what I dream and I don't care that you don't care? Here we go again! So I dreamed that the neighbors were doing construction (as they are in real, waking life) and one of their machines, parked in our driveway, was run by
a small dog that had to walk around and around incessantly on a long leash, tangling and untangling it (that part is only in the dream). So some of the other neighbors gathered (not real ones; dream neighbors) to comment on this little fluffy white dog who had to walk around and around, powering this huge machine. Some, such as
Dr. Theresa and I, thought it was awful! Others thought it wasn't so bad. One woman said, "It's the same thing the dog would be doing anyway, going for a walk," and I made a sarcastic remark about how it wasn't the same to get on
a merry-go-round and to take
a trip to Disneyland. That's what I said in the dream. This angered the woman. She said quietly, to end the conversation, "That's that." I said, "I beg your pardon?" and she hissed, much louder, "THAT'S THAT." And she hissed a great hiss. So then Laura Dern came up! She was on my side. She was like, "Let me handle this." So she did a trick where she took an old rocking chair apart without using her hands - I'm just telling you what I dreamed! - and there were some
roller skates concealed in the inner workings of the rocking chair, and Laura Dern put them on and did an "eccentric dance" with skates on. A
player piano started playing! (It was a piano from my childhood, and I assured Dr. Theresa it had always been a player piano because I didn't want her to be scared. BUT IT HAD NEVER BEEN A PLAYER PIANO.) Some guy started playing the harmonica, blatantly disregarding that he was playing in a different key than the piano, which I worried would enrage the neighbor even further. But Laura Dern started singing like this: "Wah wah wah!" Somehow it reconciled the piano and the harmonica. The hissing neighbor reluctantly enjoyed the performance, and an uneasy truce occurred, thanks to the antics of Laura Dern! So the neighbors all left and finally we could get back to the wedding celebration that was going on! Yes, one of my older relatives (I guess) had married
Phyllis Diller! Who is dead in real life. Also,
Pendleton Ward was staying with us. Secretly! He had been hiding out during the dog controversy. Also, there was a casket in the room where the wedding reception was. And someone was inside it! Kind of under glass, Snow White style.
And Phyllis Diller said to me, "You've loved me since you were a kid, haven't you?" And I said, "I've loved you since I was in the womb!" which got a huge laugh in the dream. Ha ha, it's cool to mention wombs in a dream, right? And Phyllis Diller said she was planning on going out on the town with me one
New Year's Eve so I could impress my friends. "I'll go dressed as
Carol Burnett!" she said, which was some kind of joke - about
Halloween, I think? - and everybody else laughed but it took me a second to catch on. I know I dreamed about the dog because I read about the execution of
Mary, Queen of Scots, right before I went to bed. After they had lopped off her head, a little dog ran out of her clothes, where it had been concealed the whole time! "Yelping, it slid in her blood,"
writes Peter Ackroyd. Sorry! But that's real life, not a nightmare, though it seems like a nightmare, and I read it before retiring as a violent storm raged.
