"I Keep Thinking This Is A Dream"

I just remembered part of a dream I had last night. My partner, who returned yesterday from a short trip, was returning from a trip. Only she had been in Europe -- "I wish," she's saying herself as she read this entry -- and the trip was, predictably, longer. Lying in bed, decompressing from the time we'd spent apart, I asked her how well she'd managed to get around. To my surprise, she confessed that she'd driven. "You rented a car?" I asked. "No, I bought one. It's in the front driveway." Pressed for details, she described what sounded like a rent-to-own program and then chronicled her adventures on European highways. "Go have a look," she prodded. I walked into the front room as bidden and peered out the front window. Suddenly, it was light. But not the brilliant sun-saturated light of Tucson but the luminous gray of Western Europe. And there, sitting proudly in our driveway were both one of those curvy Opel GTs from the late 1960s or early 1970s, tastefully coated in dark primer with alternating patches of light primer, and, next to it, a trailer bed with the shell of another, similarly classy, car body on top, one which I recognized as the wagon version of that curvy Opel.

I realize, of course, now that I'm awake, that there was never a wagon version of the Opel GT. I also realize that it's unlikely that the two shells would be "interchangeable," as my partner related to me during our exchange in the dream. "You just take one off and put the other on," she cheerfully noted and I did not object.

I'm not going to attempt to psychoanalyze this dream; I'll leave that to my readers. Suffice it to say, by way of getting the marble rolling, that Freud would have wanted you to interrogate the word "Opel," that the doubling of bodies and their easy interchangeability seems highly significant, and that the European stamp overlaid on a short, domestic trip probably has a lot to say about where my mind is drifting.

It's always interesting to discern the real-life source for elements in a dream, even if that tracing back doesn't usually explain much. I'll close, then, with the obvious ones in this case:

• On the drive down to the airport yesterday evening, I saw an SUV towing a battered Vega wagon, which had a primered look much like the curvy Opel in my dream. I had to wait for the vehicle to pass before turning right from Cortaro onto Oracle. As we drew alongside it, I noticed that the trailer had no brake lights and was very hard to see in the dark and thought, "That's really dangerous."

• My friend Laura phoned me from New York City yesterday to ask me about my recent entries on blogging. She also talked about the trip to Italy that she and her family had just returned from. It sounded wonderful. She emphasized how relaxing and low key the trip had been.

• The only visit I've made to Europe since my year as an exchange student in Germany was in October, 2001. At some point, I'll tell that story in this space. Unlike Laura's trip, it was not relaxing. I traveled as the anthrax scare was getting exponentially worse and deluded myself into thinking that I might have it. As it turns out, I was having an allergic reaction to the sweaters I was wearing. But the pressure on my chest had me very anxious indeed. Other than that, the strangest aspect of that trip is that I flew to Venice, rented a car, and drove to southern Austria to attend my conference, then looped back through Slovenia and made a detour to Trieste on the return route. Driving on the Autostrada in dense Adriatic fog at 100mph+ was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.

In real psychoanalysis, of course, the way that the patient describes her or his dream is the focal point of the analyst's interpretation, including any steps she or he makes to steer that interpretation in a particular direction. That means that everything I've written here, including the three possible sources of dream content I just listed, is fair game. Go for it.

No Coup D'Etat in This Etat

So my favorite "political" hip-hop act The Coup have announced a new tour, which will be visiting such major metropoles as Bozeman, Montana. But by the time they get to Arizona -- assuming a drive back from Austin via I-10 -- the tour will have ceased. I'm so tired of this state being ignored by artists who drive through it between Texas and California. Needless to say, I'm going to have to hit one or the other if I want to see the next Bloc Party tour. And Tortoise with Daniel Lanois. And, and, and. . . Argghhhh!

Golden Age

I heard from my friend Caren today. I haven't spoken to her in a couple of years, what with her peripatetic lifestyle and my poor performance as a postal correspondent. But I was delighted to receive her note. She also included two photos from her wedding -- actually, they were shot at the rehearsal dinner the night before -- that put me in an intensely nostalgic mood.

The day of the rehearsal began with me driving into town to catch the huge Cezanne exhibit, an activity set aside for interested guests. I distinctly recall listening to the Sebadoh single from Harmacy with tremendous joy as I drove the Schuylkill Expressway myself for the first time -- equivalent to riding the scariest roller coaster around if you're a native of southeast Pennsylvania -- on my way to the museum. Once there, I pondered the steps from Rocky and spent a long time absorbing all I could of the Cezanne. Then I headed out to the Philadelphia airport to pick up my friends John and Adina, purchasing my treasured "Bucks County Coffee Company" cup -- I lived in Bucks county until I was eleven -- while I was waiting for them. Although the rehearsal began with intense class anxiety on my part -- the "mainline" Philadelphia location triggered Pennsylvania body memories I haven't felt as strongly anywhere else -- by the time it ended I'd made numerous trips into the darkness beyond the reach of the patio lights to commiserate with fellow travelers and also smoked my first and last cigar. Later that night, a trio of smokers in my motel room, ignoring my "You can't do that here!" attitude, set off a central alarm and brought security to my door.

We all made it to the church on time for the next day's wedding, then celebrated at the reception for over seven hours, during which time there was a full bar where every drink was gratis. I averaged a Cape Codder every twenty minutes. For all that, though, I was still standing when we left for the after party at a local pub. To my drink-dulled consternation, several guests ended up joining me in my rental car for the confusing drive over. I then spent the next few hours drinking lots of beer and getting hit on, bizarrely, by some undergraduates from Villanova. I knew better than to drive back to the motel. I gave the keys to John, who brought us safely back.

The next day I met my cousin, his then-wife, and my uncle for a traditional Philly breakfast. I could barely speak. But I managed to plough through a pile of scrapple in the interest of family bonding, then left for what seemed like an excessively long drive to the airport in Newark. And you know what? I remember the whole experience with great fondness. It's nice to recall the abandon with which I lived in the months prior to my own wedding. So much has transpired since, from the breaking up of our circle of friends, to our move to Arizona, to the horrors of the present Bush Administration, that 1996 feels a lot longer ago than it actually was. The photo, which I'd never seen before today, brings that time of lost innocence back. Not to mention that it also proves that I actually have worn a suit, "just like George W. Bush," as my daughter likes to say.

The Laws of Physics

This past week feels like the longest of my life, even though it contained the same number of seconds as all the rest. I was just sitting at the computer, not really doing anything in particular, and was suddenly overcome by everything that's happened to me in that time. None of it is clearly "bad" and much is definitely good. But that doesn't make me any less exhausted. I could use a few weeks where time passes more quickly to balance things out.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for seven days of sentimentality, in which a wide variety of songs make me teary and a Dogme film leaves me sobbing. When I was reading Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther back in German 101, I was going through the ups-and-downs of undergraduate passion and identified strongly with the protagonist. Later on, I'd look back on that time in my life and think, "Damn, it was strange to feel so much directly." I suppose it's comforting to realize that I still have the capacity to experience that degree of self-absorption when the moment's right. Better to feel passion too strongly than not feel anything at all. Right?