Dream

You guys should all know by now about my involvement with City Garage Theatre. I'm not a performer there (well, sort of not... I was in two plays but that was a long time ago and I'm certainly not an actor), but I worked in the light and sound booth (and will again). It's funny, I had lunch with the director about a month ago, and we were talking to this woman she knows who owns a shop on Main Street in Santa Monica. FM introduced me to the woman as their "light and sound booth operator." The woman happens to have a daughter who does that for a living, and she asked me some technical questions that I don't even remember now but at the time I was all flustered.

I had to answer, "Frederique and Charles have cleverly worked it out so that my training makes me uniquely qualified to only work with them. I wouldn't know the first thing about any other light/sound booth." It was kind of funny because I answered her very properly (we'd all been sort of fooling around and talking casually, playing with the baby, laughing at the weird pig masks she had behind the counter. She was a nice lady). Everyone laughed.

Isn't that weird? Maybe I would know the first thing, but there I go again, not feeling very capable, kind of putting myself down. And, it can't be very hard and probably would be really interesting to learn how to really work a light/sound booth. I mean, as opposed to just hitting "go" and "play." Unless that really is all that's involved, in which case, I am a pro, but I kind of doubt it. I might ask Charles to teach me more next time, if there's time (there usually isn't time).

So, it's been awhile since that happened; I've been thinking about it off and on ever since.

But, that's not what this post is about.

Last night I had a dream that instead of building a super cushy new booth (ha ha) for me in the new space, Charles built me an... orchestra pit. And Frederique put me in charge of hiring an orchestra for the show they were doing (I don't know what the play was). It would be totally cool to have an orchestra and a pit in the new space, but a little... unrealistic.

I don't know who the other musicians were (random dream musicians, apparently) but I hired my friend, bassist Jeff Schwartz. The conductor was my flute teacher/flute choir leader Patty Sikorski. And me. I hired me, because I saw me in the pit with my flute.

I've been in pits with my flute as a semi-professional musician, and it's a lot of fun. I'm mostly fine with the fact that I never earned a college degree in music or worked more as a musician, but sometimes... once in a while... I wonder about it. I mean, then I remember that I'm pretty lazy, a terrible hustler, and not that interested in teaching, so I think ultimately not being a professional musician was a good choice, leaving me to love playing for the sheer joy of playing... right (even to me that sounds a little bullshit-ty)? Oh, well. Too late now, I guess. I should just think about my great pay, 4 day work week, retirement and benefits instead.

Anyway, back to my dream: there was a rehearsal in the pit, and then me and Jeff went for yogurt at some yogurt shop next to the theater afterwards. Is there at yogurt shop at Bergamot Station? There was in my dream. I've never eaten yogurt with Jeff Schwartz. I've never, I don't think, eaten anything with Jeff Schwartz. So I guess that's what dreams are, right?

Maybe next time I can dream about flying or Stewart Copeland, or flying with Stewart Copeland or something. No offense, Jeff, I'm sure getting yogurt with you would be awesome, but maybe I need to dream a little bigger. I mean, if we really wanted to, that's an event that could actually happen, right? No big deal.

So. Note to self: dream bigger.