my dream log

Every once in awhile, I have these vivid, crazy dreams. I have had a couple memorable ones lately, so I thought I’d share, before they diffuse into the black hole that is commonly known as my memory…

For starters, I had quite a scary dream that I was with a bunch of friends and for some reason we were staying overnight in a cheap motel. I went outside and noticed that there was a sketchy guy that was watching and following me. I was scared he would follow me back to our room, so I began to book it, and he began to chase me. I made it to the motel room alright and slammed the door behind me. I told my friends about Sketchy Man and we collectively decided it would be a good idea to call the police.

Unfortunately, somehow by calling 911 that alerted the police to my presence which apparently was not a good thing. Suddenly, they were after ME. I don’t know why. I hadn’t done anything illegal (as far as I know)…

After splitting up from my friends, I remember running through the streets of an enormous, unfamiliar, extremely modern city. There was one particularly large and imposing concrete building that I remember running through as I was evading and avoiding the sound of police sirens.

Fortunately for me, I had somewhat of a flying ability. Not quite Superman-esque, but I could at least take large leaps in the air, covering an entire city block in one bound, much like how Peter Parker can run and leap across adjoined buildings.

So that definitely helped me stay one step ahead of the police for most of the pursuit. Not bad when you can leap buildings in a single bound.

I somehow got the idea that it would be smart to disguise myself, so I ducked into a hat shop in a mall. Only one problem, as you may or may not know, I have a major hat fetish, a quirk that unfortunately translated into my dream. I spent about 15 minutes in the hat shop, trying on a number of different hats, mostly plaid but I saw a couple cute dark red ones. Eventually, I noticed the shop owner nervously clutching a phone in one hand and looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

I figured that somehow the police had sent out a wire to be on the lookout for me, faxing my picture to all law enforcement agencies and shop owners apparently. Then I realized that they probably already had access to my account information. So I realized that as soon as I swiped my credit card to buy the hat, they would know exactly where I was. Then I realized that I probably should just go to an ATM and dump as much cash as I could out of my account, in case I had to stay on the run for awhile. So I finally gave up on buying a hat.

The shop owner tried to block me from leaving the store, but I somehow made it past him. Then I heard the sirens.

So I started running/leaping/semi-flying away.

I made it safely away.

All of a sudden, I felt like I was in the Old Town section of a smaller European city, and it looked a bit like Heidelberg. The buildings were older and the streets had more of a cobblestone look. I ran into a friend from high school. At first she was friendly to me, but then she accused me of stealing her boyfriend (which also was not true), but she threatened to turn me into the police as revenge.

Then I woke up.

So essentially, the dream was about me running away. Chasing dreams are quite normal apparently. I was glad that I could at least somewhat fly in this one. That helped in my anxiety to escape the police. I hate those dreams when you’re trying to run away and your feet just sink you down lower into the ground.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this dream reveals anything particularly flattering about me. Running away in dreams for me often signifies that I am attempting to avoid confrontation, which is usually true. I have gotten better over the years at confronting, but it’s not my strongest suit. Also it tends to signify that I am anxious about something. Which is probably true.

I also had a dream last night that I went to a Brooke Fraser concert, and met her afterwards. I think this may be due to the fact that I fell asleep listening to “Albertine” on my iPod and that worship band sang “Hosanna” at Status last night. But who knows.

In the dream, Brooke actually seemed a bit withdrawn and none-too-psyched about meeting people after her show for some reason, which I can’t imagine happening in real life because she seemed really open-hearted and easy going at the conference, but in my dream, I began to tell her about Hananasif and she was keenly interested in the orphanage. We began to swap stories about our experiences in East Africa. In the end, she seemed really interested in supporting the orphanage.

The Running Dream inspired me to write a song called “Say Good-bye.” It’s a bit mainstream sounding, but it’s fun for me to sing, at any rate. It’s definitely not even remotely the best song I've ever written, but it was also good for me to poke fun at my weaknesses with irony and make it sound somewhat melodic;)

Say Good-bye

I grew up in a town
That was born for the wind
And bears anyone, everyone
Farther away, farther away

I came so much closer this time
To being someone who is brave
And marvelous, effortless
At giving away, giving away

Chorus

Spinning and swaying and breaking away
Taking my cue from the sky
Coming full circle, it’s better this way
I don’t have to say good-bye

Kinder words
Have been spent on beckoning me
But I want your honesty, honestly
When I walk away, I walk away

Spinning and swaying and breaking away
Taking my cue from the sky
Coming full circle, it’s better this way
I don’t have to say good-bye

I’m taking and turning and burning away
All of the things left behind
[i don't like this line so who knows what'll go here...]Maybe some day
I’ll learn how to say good-bye

not to brag, but...

Guess which band is today's #1 indie rock pick on music download.com (cuz Nickleback doesn't count as "indie..."?

http://music.download.com/2001-10546_32-0.html?tag=MDL_nav_dir&

That would be... the OaKs.

Heck yeah.

Once

Since I'm pretty much mildly obsessed with this movie I thought it warranted a blog.

I first heard about the movie while listening to this segment on my car radio, featuring one critic's picks for the top 10 Most Overlooked films of 2007. They played a clip of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova singing "Falling Slowly" and even though the clip was barely 20 seconds long I thought it was really beautiful and added it to my Netflix later that day. Also our band leader Ryan emailed us later and told us how amazing it was, which only of course fed my anticipation of watching the film.

The story is incredibly simple: Irish street musician meets a Czech immigrant/pianist, they write and sing songs together and there's a bit of a romance going on. Director John Carney used a long lens, so the whole film has the feel of a homemade documentary. I read somewhere later that the film was made on a shoestring budget of $160,000 after major producers pulled their funding when Cillian Murphy--originally the lead--backed out of the project. So they ended up casting Glen Hansard--lead singer/guitarist of the Irish band the Frames--who was writing the songs for the film anyway. I'm glad Cillian Murphy wasn't it... Creepy Scarecrow from Batman or Psycho from Red Eye. No thanks, man.

I think the scene that seems to be the most memorable and popular among the critics and bloggers in the "Music Store Scene." And with good reason. I think if you've ever sat down with another musician and shared your songs with each other and felt that immediate chemistry, like everything corresponds and fits instantly, that is the exact moment and experience that is captured in that scene. That's pretty much only happened to me once, maybe twice.

Totally did not intend that pun by the way.

Anyway, just a warning... not everybody is going to like this film... This is for all you people that hate it when someone hypes up an independent movie (a la Garden State or Juno) and then you watch it and you're disappointed and if it hadn't been hyped up there's a good chance you would've enjoyed it more...

I did like Juno, as a side note. But that may be a different blog.

There's hardly any dialogue in Once--and where there is, it often consists of strong, hearty Irish (or Czech) f-bombs a plenty; however, music mainly carries the story along. I'm sure some people out there expecting popcorn fluff and special effects will find it boring, but I thought it was an amazing film with a lot of heart that felt really true to life.

The film's two leads Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova recorded an album as a group called The Swell Season and it features a lot of the music from the film. The funny thing is the music is not necessarily intricate or technically impressive... they just play and sing and write with a lot of passion and poignancy and emotion.

My only regret is that I didn't find about this earlier last year. Maybe then I could've caught them in their tour of the U.S. That's what I get for eschewing the Enzian all summer long, right? Blast.

P.S. You can listen to an entire concert of them online here. They play a bunch of their songs and also a Van Morrison cover of Into the Mystic and Bob Dylan's You Ain't Goin' Nowhere.

Enjoy.

inadvertent identity theft

There’s this lady here at work who constantly mistakes me for another girl here named Pearly. I once sat with this lady, ate lunch and engaged in some polite chatter with her for a full thirty minutes. We have the usual office kitchen run-ins every now and then, but every time she calls me “Pearly.”

I think she initially sat down to eat with me that one time because she thought I was Pearly. Pearly is also Asian and she wears glasses (which I do occasionally to protect my eyes from the perils of Dell computer monitors), so I suppose I can understand how people would confuse us, but honestly apart from that, we look nothing alike. I am about 6 inches taller than Pearly and we’re not even the same ethnicity.

Pearly is also on the Travel Team here at work. Every time I see this nice lady, she asks me about the Travel Team.

At first it was annoying but now I just think of it as funny. Like Creed from the Office, who keeps calling Meredith “Mary Beth” and Angela “Andrea.”

It also reminds me of the Benihana Christmas episodes when Michael can't tell the two Asian waitresses apart.

I used to gently remind her that I’m Melissa, not Pearly, but she seems set on thinking that I’m Pearly, so I’ve sort of resigned myself to that fate. I know identify theft is illegal but hopefully I won’t get in too much trouble for it. I like to think of it as my training for when I assume false identities for my future CIA training.

Christmas Carol quiz

See what score you get:D

No cheating!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/carolquiz,0,4932856.triviaquiz

"Enchanted" and the art of cynicism

I have been wrestling a lot with the idea of cynicism and hope. I think it goes without saying (even though I’m going to say it anyway) that our generation has cynicism down to an art. We’re even cynical about being cynical. We can tear things apart to no end. Sarcasm is our generation’s language.

Lately, I’m finding that, rather than move toward and engage in cynicism (which up until now has become an increasingly favorite pastime of mine), I’ve been wanting to run toward hope and move forward.

I heard someone say recently that even though we’ve got cynicism down to art, it’s our starting point that really counts. Do we approach things from a starting point of love or suspicion? Can we meet disappointment with grace? Are we willing to build up over what we’ve torn down?

I saw the movie Enchanted recently and was fully prepared to swallow its sugary, cheesiness in all its saccharine, Disney glory. As many of you know, I have a soft spot for musicals and tend to be more forgiving toward easy answers when they’re cloaked in song and dance. Because often times, musicals surprise me and turn out to be more complex than they initially appear.

For those of you who haven’t seen Enchanted, let me sum up. The film is about a princess named Giselle who lives in the fairy tale land of Andalasia. By a stroke of an evil plot thanks to her evil stepmother-to-be, she’s whisked away and thrown unceremoniously into Times Square in NYC, a place where we hear that there “are no happy endings.” She brings her wide-eyed charm and enthusiasm for life and love into cynical New York and eventually captures the heart of a jaded lawyer, played by Patrick Dempsey.

The movie pokes fun at its more naïve, innocent days of cell-animated princesses who had woodland creatures that helped sew and tidy up while she--and her slightly too large eyes and angular features and a pretty dress--waited for some smooth, singing looker on a horse to whisk her away into the sunset. Despite the obvious absurdity of someone like Giselle being thrown into postmodern urban life, her energy and innocence is simply infectious. Patrick Dempsey’s character, aghast at Giselle’s unshakable belief in true love and happy endings at one point quips, “It’s like you escaped from a Hallmark greeting card or something.” And she replies: “Is that bad?”

In a strange way, the movie Enchanted kind of helped personify hope for me. The film to me turned out to be an unlikely window into our culture. We poke fun at our younger, naïve days. We realize that often times relationships don’t lead to where we thought they would, and that “true love” is a myth that at best is a fantasy that can never be, or at worst a lie fed to us by media in a subverted attempt to promote commercialism. Or as Jim Carrey’s character says in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one of my favorite movies of all times: “Valentine’s Day is a holiday invented by greeting card companies in order to make people feel like crap.”

In true Disney form, the film eventually abandons its light self-mockery (which never reaches Shrek-like proportions) and resolves into typical fashion, where dreams come true and people find happiness… but for some reason it didn’t strike me as being untrue or inconsistent with reality.

The truth is, we all have plenty to be cynical about. You can be cynical about everything from the Chicago Cubs, relationships, up through the state of the church, world hunger and poverty. But the point is our starting point… Do we begin from a starting point of love or suspicion? Hope or cynicism? And do we decide to build up what we’ve torn down?

That is why I walked out of the movie strangely feeling happy and at peace with life (well apart from the songs that were either so darn catchy or genuinely moving: note the classic Disney ballroom dancing scene).

I’ve become cynical over the years about falling in love, the church, stability, family, even the state of my own wretched self's attempt to be a Christ follower… Some of my cynicism is justified, some not so justified.

But the point is I have a responsibility to hope, to dream, to plan, to build, to LOVE. I have the PRIVILEGE of these things.

And I’d rather not waste them, not while I have life left in me…

Prince Caspian

Okay I am really excited about this: