My dream about comedians, my mom, and how beauty is on the inside

I wasn't going to blog about this because lately I've been writing a lot about my stupid dreams and I suspect that's pretty dull for everyone to read about. But seriously, this one (come on, just read it) was rad. Maybe it's just hormones, I don't know. They've been fun dreams for me, anyway.

So in last night's dream, I'm not me. Instead, I am... Paula Poundstone. It's sometime in the 80s. I know I'm her because I'm dressed like her, I look like her, I'm funny like her... I'm definitely not me. Paula is hanging out with Craig Ferguson, who, I'm just guessing, was probably totally adorable in the 80s. Paula's not looking too bad herself. She's kind of dressed like a preppy - I've seen some of her old comedy specials. I like her look; I like a woman who wears a tie. She has a friend, a blond woman who thinks Craig is interested in her. I don't even know if Paula Poundstone and Craig Ferguson knew each other in the 80s. I guess I think they'd make a cute couple. For some reason the blond woman starts dressing like Paula (in the dream, they, or should I say "we," both are wearing khaki pants, a baby-blue button down shirt, and a cream colored sweater vest. Possibly Bass penny loafers are involved, but I never saw the feet. Nerd alert!), maybe because she (the blond woman) knows that Craig's really more interested in Paula and by dressing like her she hopes to... wow him with her blondness? I don't know, I'm not sure I can analyze the psychological processes of some dream woman I don't know and have never seen before. My brain may have created her, but her inner life, if there is one, is her own.

Paula and her friend are hanging out at Craig Ferguson's apartment, which is kind of small, but neat and happy-looking. He has a lot of travel posters on the walls, which are painted blue. There are lots of plants and white furniture. It's kind of girly. He also has a roommate, a brown-haired dude who seems kind of like one of those guys you see down at Venice Beach, showing off their muscles in those little shorts. Surprisingly, luckily, whatever, the blond and the dude end up liking each other, leaving Paula and Craig alone.

This is where it gets all goofy.

Craig and Paula are flirting, and though I know that Paula Poundstone has talked about not being a sexual person, who knows what her past is like? Anyway, they're having fun, and I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks. This part of the dream doesn't last very long, okay, so no, I'm not having sex dreams about Paula Poundstone. But then, Craig says to Paula, hang on a minute. If you and I are going to have a relationship, you need to know something.

She's all, "Okay... what?" (Really, I made her a genius and a goddess in my dream!)

And he says, "This is not my real apartment."

He walks over to a closet door, and opens it. Instead of a closet, the door opens into a whole other apartment, exactly like this one, but furnished in darker, richer colors. It's quiet, and shaded from the sunlight. I really liked that second apartment, and it felt masculine and comfortable and totally different from the first apartment, which was full of sun and light.

Then I woke up.

Later, when I went back to sleep, I dreamed about my mom and dad. My mom looked like she did in all those photos my dad took of her in the late 60s - she had short, high, black hair, and tight skin with a perfect creamy complexion and dramatic black eyebrows. She was wearing a dress in a bold pattern but with a simple cut. My mom has always been a little heavy - you can see my dad thought she was a queen, because she always looked so beautiful in the pictures he took. He posed her on one of those covered patio swings or sitting on the bed, and the black and white photos reduced everything to her dark hair and light skin. But in the dream, I was me, my age now, looking like me, now, not how a me would've dressed in the 60s, and she's talking to me about my dad, a little sad, but I don't remember what she said.

...

On Friday, we were coming home from her chemotherapy appointment, and she was talking about missing her hair. Her hair has always been short, but she's tired of being bald. I told her, "It's how you are on the inside, Mom," something she probably said to me when I was a kid and hated my clothes or my looks or my own bad hair or whatever. We were making the turn from Jefferson onto Sepulveda right before we turn again onto Sawtelle (an interesting intersection; I remember absentmindedly running a red light once while driving Drew's car and he, understandably, FREAKED OUT. Needless to say I pay more attention these days), and we were both crying. By the time we got home, just a few blocks from there, we were both fine, and had moved on to other topics. Because of her chemotherapy, and because I'm just a ball of emotions these days anyway, we both cry pretty easily these days.

What all this has to do with anything, well, who knows. Like I said, it's probably pregnancy hormones.