Freaky dreams, or What happens when I eat after 9:30pm

So we double-booked yesterday.  It was an accident, we swear.  We were going over to see our friends and their kids in the afternoon and we thought it was going to be an early dinner, so we accepted an invitation to a fireworks/late-night drinks party out by the water.  By the time the kids went to bed, it was 7:30.  This pushed our arrival at our second engagement (shame on my face) to 10:30.  And the host was serving lamb and roast potatoes and peas and heavy duck gravy and wine and cocktails and all that stuff.  I didn't eat half of what was on my plate, it was so rich.  I had three very sinful sips of red wine (acid reflux is the devil) and it was deeeelicious, and then I took my apple pie out of the oven and managed to eat a piece of that too.  There was a time when none of this would have bothered me in the slightest.  I think it was when I would have considered myself in my "early twenties," but we ain't there no more, no siree.  And that means we have to accept certain things about ourselves.  I must go to the gym or else I will be cranky.  I must not drink red wine or my acid will act up and my voice will be shot.  I must be asleep before midnight or else I will feel like poop the next day.  Now and then, when I break my body's rules, I am rewarded with some pretty freaky dreams.  Last night was a doozy, and my friend Ayla suggested I write them down just for humor or something.  

Part 1:  Hanging out at very large house, not mine, with Cher and Bette Midler.  Raving about how much I love Cher's acting in Moonstruck, Bette Midler might have been doing her nails.  Not so freaky.  Woke up, went to the bathroom, went back to sleep.  Just wait.

Part 2:  I'm visiting Peter (artistic director of the Seattle YAP) on the set of a show he's directing.  He's busy and trying to tell me where to go so that I will be out of the way and I can see what's going on - tells me to go sit on the set.  I'm asking, "are you sure you want me to sit on the set, won't I be in the way?"  "Damn it, just go sit on the fucking set!"  "Okay okay, I'll go!  But if the mailbox ends up on my bed, you'll pay for it!"  (What the hell?) So I go and sit on the set, where there's this girl doing some kind of ass-backwards seduction with a semi-cute guy.  She's not nailing her beats, and I'm just sitting there, trying to be out of the way, making spitballs with straw wrappers (that have mysteriously appeared in my hands) and then someone yells, "HOLD!" which usually means something is seriously wrong and/or unsafe on the set.  I take this opportunity to get off the set and Peter comes up to me and says, "Okay, either you are seriously fucked up and mad that you didn't get in this production, or you completely misunderstood my directions."  "What are you talking about?"  "What am I talking about?  They were running the fucking scene and you were sitting right in the middle of it?  Have you lost your mind?"  "YOU TOLD ME TO GO SIT THERE."  "Right.  So then you misunderstood.  Now my actress is freaking out, would you please please go apologize to her so maybe she will come back and finish the fucking scene?"  So I go off to find this woman, feeling absolutely horrible because she probably thinks I was trying to hijack her scene for some stupidly malicious reason.  I find her, and I'm trying to apologize and saying, "You can ask anyone on this set who knows me, it's not me to do something like this.  I misunderstood Peter's directions when he told me to go sit on the set, I took him literally so I did, I'm so so sorry and I really hope we can be colleagues and work together someday."  And she says, "Well.  I think any chance of that went out the window when you said "If the mailbox ends up on my bed, you'll pay for it!" right in the middle of my scene!"  At this point, Jenna, the girl who runs the computer lab at NEC, comes out of the next room.  She's apparently the stage manager, because I say to the huffy girl, "Look, Jenna knows me and she knows I would never do this to a colleague - Jenna, tell her!" And she tries, but to no avail.  The girl grabs her giant white crayon highlighter, smears it down her nose, and stomps off.  Jenna shrugs and leaves.  So then I'm really feeling like crap, trying to get out of the way as fast as possible.  Then, I hear the music start for the "big number" in the act, and I realize they're doing Sunday in the Park With George, one of my favorites, and this crazy girl is playing Dot.  So I dash around to the front of the set so I can watch (just watch, I swear!) and the production is.......weird.  The girl playing Dot is wearing these space-aged go-go boots and something out of Thunderdome (or a Lady Gaga video) and she really REALLY can't sing.  I mean really.  And projected on the scrim behind the main part of the stage are videos of squid, octopi, and other fish, floating around during this opening number.  Wow.  Now I'm really confused.  Sunday in the Park With George, at the aquarium?  Underwater?  Underwater in space?  

And then I woke up.  Holy crap.  Happy 4th of July.  I'm NEVER eating that late again.

All the things we leave behind

I've had a couple of really eventful weeks.  I spent a week in Tennessee with one of my best friends, tooling around the Dress Barn and eating sno-cones and soaking up all of my southern trash food nostalgia.  Capped off with the fact that their house, which had been sitting on the market for 18 months, suddenly had a bunch of interested parties, one of which actually put down an offer while I was there.  Bang!  Their house is sold and they bought another one.  Forget burying the St. Joseph's statue in the yard, just invite me down for a week.  We'll get right on that.  

Last week, I was in Maryland with my husby to see his family.  It's not really vacation when you see people you're related to.  I love my family and I love my husband's family, but that's just how it is y'all.  Vacation is when you don't see the people who share your DNA.  

It's got me thinking hard about where we live and what we do.  I was tripping down the steps at my sister-in-law's house and suddenly it occurred to me, "it would be so nice if we could just drop by her place and visit with her on the weekends."  Now I'm sure my feelings would be different if we actually DID live that close, but I'm trying to plan my annual visit down south and it's proving to be really hard.  I have a job for the month of July.  I'm going to France for a week in August to do some singing.  September, the church job starts back and then I have an orchestra gig.  October seems promising, but then my little brother is already back at school so I won't see him for yet ANOTHER year.  I love our house in Boston.  I love coming home to our space that's decorated with our colors and holds our furniture and our dog and our friends.  I love when people come over to our house for supper - like last night, when we cooked Christmas present dinner for Mary and Laura - and I like it when we pile into cars with our friends and take day trips out to breweries on the Cape and have cookouts and go to Red Sox games.  I love all of those things, and more.  We took the train to the airport.  From right outside our house.  Never in a jillion years would that be possible in the state of Louisiana.  It just isn't possible.  At the same time, something in me longs for those drives on wide, straightaway roads.  I haven't driven much since we moved to Boston, other than here and there around the city - public transportation is totally the way to go for me.  But I miss it.  

I feel torn in two most times when I think about this.  Other than the people I love, I really don't know if I could find a peer group that suits me so well.  People from different backgrounds with common interests and (mostly) common philosophies on life.  I had forgotten what it was like to see people flinch when I say, "Fred and his husband Warren."  And I don't mind that forgetting.  I had also forgotten what it was like to have someone say, "Excuse me honey," when they have to get past you in a crowded place.  Recently, a high school friend remarked on facebook that the TSA people in the Boston airport were terribly rude to him.  Now I'm not saying that I'm all lovey-dovey with the TSA, but I spend far more time in the Boston airport than most people do, and I would say they're polite and efficient.  But it's not the same as the TSA people in Knoxville, who are twanging sweetly at you and asking you if you're having a good day.  The airport is also the size of my living room, so they have the time to do that, and they're not considered a "high-risk" airport like Boston is.  

How much do we give up as we grow up?  I've already given up red wine (acid reflux) and eating fatty foods as much as I want (Gilda has to fit into the bag) and seeing my best friend's baby (they live in Texas) and birthdays and anniversaries and spending holidays with my family, mostly because of gigs.  I've given up months away from my husband for work, and paid obscene amounts of money on plane tickets, just to steal a few days with him.  For what we paid for our house in Boston, we could have a beautifully restored Victorian on an acre of land in Louisiana.  How do we justify decisions when our heart is in many places but our address is only in one?  

I need red velvet cake.