Dream Journal

We were there to celebrate Anna Kendrick's birthday.

I seemed to be the only one who remembered that. The hallways lacked decoration - aside from a festive pumpkin or two - and the signs were geared toward the upcoming election. Vote for this guy! Vote for this issue! No indication of why we were there - why I was there - revealed itself until I entered the room.

This was less a ball room and more of a buffet line. Not at all suitable for a campaign rally, or a celeb's birthday. But no one was treating Anna like a famous actress.

A line of dignitaries formed to my right. I heard them before I saw them. The grandfatherly Joe Biden was the only one I recognized. He was whispering to the other men, all dressed in expensive suits. All barely paying lip service to the occasion.

One of those men, a younger gentleman than Joe, was whispering louder. "You'd better do something, Joe. We're sick of losing. We're sick of being embarrassed. And if you don't do something, I'll have to--"

A small canister fell from Joe Biden's hand, clanging against the metal pot atop the buffet table, before rolling to the ground. "Oh, would you look at that? I dropped something." He bent down to pick up what appeared to be a palm-sized can of Burt's Bees lip balm. "..What timing."

As he bent down to pick it up I hit the ground myself, using the buffet table as cover. I guided Anna down to the floor with me. "He's gonna make this about him."

Anna was attired in a maitre'd uniform - a white blouse with black accents - like she was catering the affair rather than the reason for it. I suspected that Joe was going to announce his run for President and suck away all the attention I felt she deserved. It became my mission to celebrate her - even if I was the only one doing so.

"I'll have that drink now." She said to me. The dignitaries had worn her down with their riff-raff. She needed an escape. We searched for a secluded place to talk, and drink. Outside the industrial-style building we found a trolley car. 

The room at the back was occupied by an already-tipsy woman in a magenta dress, flailing her legs over the seat. She appeared to be in her mid-50s, still trying to be sexy - and kind of pulling it off. "Oh, come on!" an exasperated Anna said when she spotted her. I got the feeling the two women were related.  

We found another trolley car and talked.. or started to. A swarm of young kids dressed mostly in sports jerseys interrupted us, jumping up at the windows and shouting questions at me. "Hey, did you tell her?" "Did you kiss her yet, man?" "Did you tell her?" 

I was flabbergasted. 

"Well, I can't if I don't get some privacy!" I snapped back. Worried that one or more of them would start crying and ruin my chances with Anna, I quickly softened. "I'm sorry for yelling. But, you know..we have to bond, click, connect, huddle..well, not huddle."

Why did I say that? That word "huddle" didn't fit at all, and yet it made sense to misuse it. It seemed like the kind of disjointed thought pattern Anna would relate to. 

Some time later we all gathered in a small theater. A burgundy rug divided the room. I sat front row center, glancing over my shoulder at the faceless crowd behind me. Was Joe Biden one of them? Was anyone paying attention?

Anna was on stage. She peeked out from beneath the big red curtains. I couldn't tell if she was feeling nervous, or underappreciated, or both. "You got this." I mouthed to her. She rocked back a bit, hesitating. I wasn't sure she'd go through with it. And then she sang....

She didn't actually sing this in my dream. Some other unrelated thing happened and then I was trapped in a storage unit and then I woke up. At 4:30 a.m. And I couldn't fall back to sleep (my body had decided it was fully rested for some reason) so I wrote this down because I like to memorialize dreams like these...and then I did some COMC challenges.

Anyway, I've got to take a nap this afternoon so that i don't fall asleep during the Red Sox-Dodgers game, which will probably end after 1 a.m. since it's in Los Angeles. So if this post seems bizarre to you, blame the sleep deprivation ;D

Thanks for reading this random story. Have a great weekend. Go Sox!

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