September 1, 1997 - Egyptian dreams

~~Egyptian dreams~~

Monday, September 1, 1997, 9:00 p.m.

I finally gave up on getting the free copy of VisualPage that the Symantec representative said he was going to send me last month. My trial period was up this weekend, and instead of reinstalling the trial software, I went ahead and bought it online. Of course, I'm pretty sure that spending most of the evening downloading it and installing it, and spending $80 + tax will ensure that the free software will show up on my doorstep tomorrow. I was going to try out Microsoft Front Page, but I just couldn't face a 22 meg, 9 hour download. It would have been nice if they could have made their trial package just a little smaller.

Today was pretty nice, pretty low key. I woke up around 8:00, and could have gotten up, but forced myself to stay in bed and I went back to sleep, and when I woke up again, it was nearly 11:00. I remembered a dream:

Bob and I were in a motel in Springfield, Missouri, where he was going to attend a continuing education class. I got out the suitcase, opened it, and realized that I hadn't brought anything of his--no clothes, no toiletries, nothing. I panicked and thought momentarily of driving back home, but that wasn't practical. It was too late in the evening to go buy new things, all the stores would be closed. I was going to have to find an all-night laundromat.

I made him take off his clothes (he was still wearing dress pants, a long-sleeved white shirt and a tie) and headed out to find a laundromat. I thought how lucky it was that he hadn't changed his clothes before we left, or he would have had nothing but sweatpants. I started to worry about how I was going to iron his shirt, and then told myself to just concentrate on getting it clean.

I've been remembering my dreams better lately. I have no idea why. I'd really like to know, though, so I can keep doing it. Maybe I'm just in a dream-recall phase. I went through a period a few years ago when I was remembering several very highly-detailed dreams every morning. I was doing a lot of business travel at the time, spending a lot of time in hotels, so maybe it was the change in sleeping location and pattern that was contributing to the recall. I have several notebooks full of dreams from that time.

It's felt like sort of a dry period the last few months. But maybe that's turning around. I hope so. I feel different, more alive, when I remember my dreams. I know I've said it before, but I feel like I'm missing part of my life when I sleep through the night and don't remember my dreams. I really like them; they're a big part of who I am.

I took myself out to breakfast this morning; well, actually, it was afternoon by the time I got going, so I guess it wasn't technically "breakfast." Lunch, maybe, or brunch. I went to LePeep, which is where I always go for breakfast out, the three or four times a year I treat myself. It was about 1:45 when I got there; they close at 2:30. There were almost no cars in the parking lot when I got there, so I checked the sign on the door to be sure they didn't close at 2:00--nope, 2:30.

I was seated, I ordered and settled in with my book. My meal came--one egg, an English muffin, diced potatoes and onions--and I read while I ate. When I finished and got up to go pay the check, I looked around to find that I was the only customer left in the place. I checked the time to see whether I had actually spaced out so much that I had stayed past their closing time, but it was still about 15 minutes away. I asked the cashier if it was always this way, and she said normally there were still lots of people there. She said they had had an early rush that was gone as quickly as it came.

After I ate I had intended to drive out to Lawrence and go to some of the shops downtown, but I decided not to. It was really too late in the afternoon to do that if I wanted to be back by early evening. So I went to Oak Park Mall, which I normally avoid like the plague. I wanted to go to Dillard's and get the Clinique gift; I had gone by a different branch on Saturday to pick one up for someone else. So I did that--I bought a mascara and an eyeliner pencil--and then went out into the mall. I hit the Disney store but didn't buy anything, although there was some really cute Pooh stuff, and I wandered around The Body Shop, but didn't buy anything there, either.

Abu Simbel Then I went into The Museum Company store, and I was lost. I bought new clothes for Venus, and a magnetic architectural kit that has marble columns, pediments, gargoyles, urns . . . for creating a shrine or temple on the refrigerator, although I've been using mine on a metal magnetic poetry board. And a book of postcards of Egyptian archeological sites of the early 1900's, and another postcard book of fanciful insect illustrations. I love these photographs. It's not hard for me to imagine being these on one of those expeditions. Of course, I spent a lot of time reading about the Egyptian discoveries when I was a child, it was a fascination of mine, almost an obsession.

Abu Simbel I read everything I could find about ancient Egypt; I remember doing a project once where I drew a poster-sized plan of the Great Pyramid, showing all the interior chambers and passageways. I don't know how I feel about excavating ancient tombs. On one hand, it obviously is desecration, but I tend to think that the search for knowledge overrides that concern. I don't think I'll care what happens to me after I'm dead, and I hope that the inhabitants of the Valley of the Kings feel the same way. Of course, I'm not a god.

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