On Saturday (I think it was Saturday. Could have been Sunday. Or Monday. That too.) I took a brief nap. This nap was because Paul wanted to have a bath and not a shower after mowing the lawn. That's cool, but I'd wanted to work out, and if he took a bath, I would likely have no hot water for mine. Because that happens.
I need hot water. Baths made of cold water are a form of torture. Seriously. Check out what they said about them during the Geneva Convention*.
So I took a nap, knowing I would then work out when I woke up.
During my nap, I had a dream.
Now, the last nap I took resulted in the Dogs of the Dance dream, which was pretty freaky. In this dream, I was in a small studio--like a yoga studio--only this studio was for people who wanted to do 30 Day Shred. And Jillian Michaels was leading the group. Like in the DVD, only what it would be like if you were IN the DVD. So we worked out.
And then Jillian was like, "It's time to settle our accounts!" And it turned out that for each workout session, we had to pay $7.00. Not bad. Plus there was a $19.99 registration fee. I tried to give her my debit card, but she was like, "We don't have a card reader until after January 1st, so I said "Okay, I will go next door to my bank."
She then gave me a discount because I had stuck with her program for so long. See? All this dedication even pays off in my DREAMS**.
So I went to the bank and came back and paid Jillian, and that was my dream. But here's the thing. I started thinking after I woke up about how expensive it would be to actually pay that kind of money for doing the 30 Day Shred. So I MATHED it.
Say I had only done this workout plan thing for the minimum 30 days. At $7.00 per day for 30 days, I would end up paying $210.00 PLUS the $19.99 registration fee. Meaning I would pay $229.99 for 30 days at this dream-studio.
Which means it would ALMOST BE AS EXPENSIVE AS JOINING THE YMCA. Except not really. The Y is more like twice that much for a year. Because it wants to support the community, so it has to be affordable for everyone. Everyone who can pay $495.00***. (Hint: that is not me****.)
Did I mention that the YMCA is the only option if you want to join any kind of gym in the town where I work? It would be cheaper if I were willing to make a 30 minute drive to work out at my alma mater, but I can't join there and pay for the extra gas it will take to make the trip. I can do one or the other. Hence the DVDs.
But back to my dream. Did you notice that Jillian has invaded my dreams? Because I DID. She will not even let me take a nap without plaguing me. See? Instead of resting, I had to do the 30 Day Shred in my dream and then I had to do it AGAIN when I woke up! That is totally not fair.
No one should have to double up on exercise in their dreams.
In other news, I figured out how I was getting those strange bruises on my knees. Yeah. 30 Day Shred. It is when I am doing the lunges and lose my balance, as I often do. I randomly dropped to one knee yesterday and I knew, that was where the bruises were coming from. So now, to avoid knee bruises, I have to fall backwards or sideways instead of forward.
Because not falling is not an option.
* I totally made that up. But it SHOULD have been in the Geneva Accords.
** Usually my dreams are not this nice. They usually involve me being suddenly struck mute, being blinded, or being unable to stand. Kind of like my life while I'm awake.
*** This is the annual price for a single adult. It can be paid up front or monthly, but paying monthly makes it more expensive. Also, you MUST commit for an entire year. So, even if you like to run outdoors except when there is a foot of snow on the ground, you don't get the option of joining for part of the year. They have to pay off that fancy new building.
**** Yes, I'm bitter about this. And sure, they have an arrangement where you can apply for a "scholarship" to make it cheaper for you to join, but the problem with that is the same as with financial aid for colleges: the poor get help. The rich don't need help. The middle income folks get no help (and cannot afford to go while still paying for things like a car, a house, medical stuff, heat, electricity, and the like). I have the form at home to apply for this aid, since my student loans take out such a big chunk from my income, but I haven't gotten over the rage enough to fill it out. We'll see.
Showing posts with label dogs of the dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dogs of the dance. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
That's Just Disturbing
I cannot take naps. They do evil things to my brain.
"It's not forever," I explained to Paul. "It's not noise or mold. It's the sun. When it's summer, I can't sleep. In the winter, the angle of the planet lets me sleep, because it's darker and not lighter, and my brain likes that. Winter is to sleep the way summer is to awake-ness."
I didn't even know what the heck I was saying. When Paul nodded and backed slowly away...it made sense. I would have backed away too. But I was stuck. My brain was inside me, and that meant I was stuck with it and its crazy analogies.
Paul was just trying to be nice. Paul is always nice. That's why when I get angry with him, I feel like I'm Satan, except human and a girl. When someone is nice to you all the time, and you aren't always a nice person, you tend to feel like you're evil and horrible in comparison.
Paul, thinking that my problems with insomnia were caused by external things (noise, allergies, and the like), had offered to switch rooms with me so I could have his much-quieter bedroom. But noise is not why I can't sleep, unless you count Dad's morning I-Just-Got-Gutted-By-a-Fillet-Knife Yawn, which would wake anyone up no matter how well they slept. Evisceration is loud.
What I was trying to do was explain that I go through spells of sleeplessness, but they pass if I'm patient. Somehow, I don't think my meaning was coming across, with my semi-paganistic ramblings.
I had come home so tired, Mom told me to go to my room and sleep. This was because I fell asleep with my head on my purse while sitting at the kitchen table.
But, as I mentioned, naps don't go well for me.
When I woke up, my brain had become soup. Everything I said was, essentially, Word Salad. Did I feel any better? No. Of course not.
If anything, I felt worse. For one thing, no one could understand me. Not even me.
But, to make matters worse, I'd had a terrible nightmare, something so bad it was beyond imagining, and it was all Dad's fault because his dream self was so disturbed and clearly evil.
Let me try to describe it for you.
Michael Flatley.
Dogs of the Dance.
Dream Dad, spurred on by his love for Irish music and his adoration of our dog, Darcy, had decided to, as a Christmas present for the family, take us all to see Michael Flatley's new musical masterwork, Dogs of the Dance*.
Think Lord of the Dance, except instead of people, there were dogs, all of them in traditional Irish costume.
Even if Dream Me had been able to handle the absolute torture of sitting through dogs dancing to Irish music, it became apparent to me from my seat in the theater that the dogs were looking mistreated. Apparently, the humane society had not been present during rehearsals, because those poor dogs looked hungry and sad. I wanted to rescue them. But before I could, Mom was waking me up, so the dogs were abandoned in the horror of my nightmare.
Poor dogs.
It was a bad dream.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to stay awake for a few more hours in order to improve my mood so I wouldn't fall asleep and be plagued by more nightmares involving dogs dancing to Celtic music.
No more naps for me.
Sadly, I can't let this go, because I want to know where Michael Flatley came from. I get the Irish music. Dad plays the Irish whistle. I even understand dreaming about dogs. I love dogs. But why Michael Flatley? WHY?
The only thing I can think of is that Maureen Johnson's Riverdance story emerged from my brain after a year of percolating in my subconscious. But who can be sure?
I'm a little afraid to sleep again.
*Let me make this clear: The REAL Michael Flatley is, to my knowledge, not planning any Irish dancing with dogs at any point in the future. It will not be coming to Broadway or to anywhere, because having dogs dance like Michael Flatley is a horrible, horrible idea and probably impossible.
"It's not forever," I explained to Paul. "It's not noise or mold. It's the sun. When it's summer, I can't sleep. In the winter, the angle of the planet lets me sleep, because it's darker and not lighter, and my brain likes that. Winter is to sleep the way summer is to awake-ness."
I didn't even know what the heck I was saying. When Paul nodded and backed slowly away...it made sense. I would have backed away too. But I was stuck. My brain was inside me, and that meant I was stuck with it and its crazy analogies.
Paul was just trying to be nice. Paul is always nice. That's why when I get angry with him, I feel like I'm Satan, except human and a girl. When someone is nice to you all the time, and you aren't always a nice person, you tend to feel like you're evil and horrible in comparison.
Paul, thinking that my problems with insomnia were caused by external things (noise, allergies, and the like), had offered to switch rooms with me so I could have his much-quieter bedroom. But noise is not why I can't sleep, unless you count Dad's morning I-Just-Got-Gutted-By-a-Fillet-Knife Yawn, which would wake anyone up no matter how well they slept. Evisceration is loud.
What I was trying to do was explain that I go through spells of sleeplessness, but they pass if I'm patient. Somehow, I don't think my meaning was coming across, with my semi-paganistic ramblings.
I had come home so tired, Mom told me to go to my room and sleep. This was because I fell asleep with my head on my purse while sitting at the kitchen table.
But, as I mentioned, naps don't go well for me.
When I woke up, my brain had become soup. Everything I said was, essentially, Word Salad. Did I feel any better? No. Of course not.
If anything, I felt worse. For one thing, no one could understand me. Not even me.
But, to make matters worse, I'd had a terrible nightmare, something so bad it was beyond imagining, and it was all Dad's fault because his dream self was so disturbed and clearly evil.
Let me try to describe it for you.
Michael Flatley.
Dogs of the Dance.
Dream Dad, spurred on by his love for Irish music and his adoration of our dog, Darcy, had decided to, as a Christmas present for the family, take us all to see Michael Flatley's new musical masterwork, Dogs of the Dance*.
Think Lord of the Dance, except instead of people, there were dogs, all of them in traditional Irish costume.
Even if Dream Me had been able to handle the absolute torture of sitting through dogs dancing to Irish music, it became apparent to me from my seat in the theater that the dogs were looking mistreated. Apparently, the humane society had not been present during rehearsals, because those poor dogs looked hungry and sad. I wanted to rescue them. But before I could, Mom was waking me up, so the dogs were abandoned in the horror of my nightmare.
Poor dogs.
It was a bad dream.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to stay awake for a few more hours in order to improve my mood so I wouldn't fall asleep and be plagued by more nightmares involving dogs dancing to Celtic music.
No more naps for me.
Sadly, I can't let this go, because I want to know where Michael Flatley came from. I get the Irish music. Dad plays the Irish whistle. I even understand dreaming about dogs. I love dogs. But why Michael Flatley? WHY?
The only thing I can think of is that Maureen Johnson's Riverdance story emerged from my brain after a year of percolating in my subconscious. But who can be sure?
I'm a little afraid to sleep again.
*Let me make this clear: The REAL Michael Flatley is, to my knowledge, not planning any Irish dancing with dogs at any point in the future. It will not be coming to Broadway or to anywhere, because having dogs dance like Michael Flatley is a horrible, horrible idea and probably impossible.
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