Wrap you Worries in Dreams

Hello it's Marc:

I spend most of my time alone. I have a best friend, her name is Cindy, and I see her every Tuesday. My dreams are my television, I have wonderful dreams, and most of this site will be narrations of those dreams.

I have acute agoraphobia, and I regularly become trapped in my apartment. It takes enormous effort on my part to go to new places, or to speak to new people. I also have trouble recognizing people, which makes making new friends even harder. I have a Master's degree in English, practice Ashtanga yoga to the point where I could teach it, but I've been a bagger at a grocery store for the past several years. Change is very hard for me, and I've just lost my job.

I hated that job from the bottom of my heart. I only stayed there out of familiarity and for fear of discrimination as a homosexual. I also have a touch of gender-disphoria, I don't mind my male body, it's quite nice, but for as long as I can remember I've always wanted to look like Mia Farrow, Jane Birkin, or Audrey Hepburn. Since that's not a possibility, I just take the part of living as a gay man, save some body-glitter and crystal-glass earrings (I love all that shimmers).

Now I'm presented with the task of going forth in the world of strangers, to get unemployment, to get food stamps, and at last, to get a job out of the retail circus. To get a job that uses my skills. I have no idea of how to present myself to the world. But here is a dream I had in November which more or less explains my current mortal dilemmas:

I had a dream completely smothered by a sense of hurriedness. I was about 5 years old, and on a field-trip to a distant town. I accidentally brought my blankey, teddy bear, and stuffed unicorn with me, and I was terrified I was going to lose them, especially since the teachers were rushing us from place to place. First we went to an old opera house, it was nighttime.

As the class entered the large marble-staired foyer, I got distracted. I walked up some red carpeted stairs to some forgotten corner of the opera house. It was a prop room, that seemed untouched since the 40's. I remember seeing framed pictures of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. I was hugging my blankey, stuffed bear, and unicorn tightly under my overcoat, but just couldn't keep myself from putting them down to open a large chest beneath those starlets' pictures. The chest had beads, dazzling in the street lights that stretched through the windows, the beads hung to the floor.

I made sure my toys were close in my sight. I opened the chest and began to deck myself like a Christmas tree, with an old fur coat, clip on earrings, and strings of beads. All so large on me that I seemed to sink in them like a child submerged in a snow bank. I just remember everything, even the slick mink hairs, flashing in the street lights through the windows. I pouted dramatically with one hand to my heart and the other reaching for the ceiling, " Comme moi!" It was then I eyed my blankey, unicorn, and teddy. I quickly shrugged off my costume, and ran down the stairs, only to find my class had already left the opera house.

I tucked my toys tightly under my coat again, and ran down the dark cobbled street in the direction the doorman told me my class had gone. I finally saw them, with their wood-soled dress shoes clacking down a small stone outside amphitheater into a library. I caught up to the class once they were inside, and carefully checked to be sure I had my blankey, my teddy bear, and my stuffed unicorn. I had all, but the class was being rushed along to a story time area, with all colors, shapes and sizes of cakes and sweets gleaming in the library's fluorescent lights. The story time had ended and we were all allowed to eat whatever we liked, but I had to put one of my toys down in order to have a hand free to have the lime green frosted chocolate cake I wanted.

I put my teddy bear down and quickly ate my cake because a teacher was already dragging me up by my arm to rush off to our next location. I almost forgot my teddy bear, but jerked away and got him before we rushed back into the moon and lamp-post lit streets of the town. Again we clacked down the cobble road. The road led past the opera house again and straight down to a man-made harbour, all made of huge stone blocks. The oddest thing was, the harbour had a humpback whale treading water right in the middle of it. Not swimming around at all, just kind of hovering at the surface of the water and looking at us as we made our way down the street. It was then I became an adult man (who looked nothing like the adult man I actually am) perhaps a journalist because I was seized by the desire to take a picture of this strange whale.

That man was still little me though, with my blankey, teddy bear, and unicorn tucked into his leather jacket. Now an adult man, I made way stealthily along the street-side buildings to try and take a picture of the whale without startling it, but just as I got my camera out, some iron-grating covering a basement level stairwell gave way. I knew I had to drop one of my toys in order to keep myself from falling to severe injury. I dropped my blankey to the bottom of the stairwell, and grabbed on the street-level railing to keep myself from falling. The dream ended with me looking down at my blankey, wondering how I was going to safely pull myself up and get down to reclaim my blankey.

I think that dream is a good summary of who I am. I plan to draw a narrated story of the dream and have already completed some sketches, but now that I'm unemployed I'm working on pictures to sell, perhaps when I finish working on the pictures I'm drawing now, I'll finish my picture book of that dream.

Thank you for reading,

Marc