if you ever need a laugh, start writing down your dreams first thing in the morning, including as many details as you can before you forget them. then a month later, go back and read through those dreams. most of them end up being like brand new stories! it's amazing how fast we forget them, when, at least for me, they seem so vibrant for the first few hours after waking. here are some my favorite things i learned about (and from) my own dreams in the last month (#84):
1. i almost always dream about people i know, usually people i know real well. this didn't seem uncommon to me until a few friends told me they usually dream about strangers...
2. on the nights i facebooked before bedtime, i dreamed about the people i facebooked.
3. three times in the last month i dreamed about driving cars where they don't belong - in a hotel lobby, through the halls of my high school, and on the deck of a large cruise ship. each time i had people yelling at me to stop, and my response was always something like, "no, no, it's cool. don't worry."
4. relatedly, i also had two dreams in which i was driving a car down a wilderness highway at night, and my headlights slowly start to dim, until they go completely out and i'm in pitch black darkness. even though i knew it was dangerous, and i'd feel panicked, i wouldn't make any real effort to pull over or even slow down. and then BAM! i'd hit something and wake up suddenly. those are not fun dreams.
5. i don't have many nightmares, but the ones i do have are always about either ghosts or dolls that come to life, and always take place in either my dad's house (the one i grew up in), or my grandparents' house. now those are the worst.
6. most of my notes were pretty elaborate, except for november thirteenth's entry, which just read, "sex dream about beyonce." sadly, i do not remember this one.
7. the following celebrities also made cameos in the last month: christopher meloni, kim kardashian, calvin & hobbes, and these guys.
8. twice i dreamed about being in an elevator that was going up so fast it shot through the roof of the skyscraper i was in.
9. it appears that i was still half asleep while recording some of the dreams, because i can't make any sense out of some of my notes, like the following from a few nights ago: "i alex's keys but hid them from him until everyone followed me home and they were trying to keep me awake and it made me cry." I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO ALEX IS! it's also worth noting that my handwriting on that one looks like a toddler's and might as well have been in crayon.
so all in all this is an awesome exercise and i plan on keeping up with it. it can only prove more interesting over time, right?
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another new recipe (#59): damn good broccoli-quinoa pilaf. here's how:
ingredients:
one teaspoon olive oil
one half small onion, chopped
salt and pepper
one cup quinoa, rinsed well
two cups chopped broccoli
one-fourth cup raisins
one-half cup roasted almonds
two scallions, sliced
heat the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. add the onion and season with salt and pepper. cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and starting to brown (three minutes or so). add the quinoa and one and a half cups water to the saucepan and bring to a boil. reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until almost all the water has evaporated (ten minutes). fold the broccoli and raisins into the mix, cover, and cook until the quinoa and broccoli are tender (another ten minutes). remove from heat and fold in the almonds and scallions. eat at your three subsequent meals.
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