I had two strange dreams this morning, and will share them both, in two different entries.  This one is the stranger—and much longer—of the two, and it does involve the F-word a bit later on, so if that’s something that bothers you, I’m letting you know now that it’s coming.  Now then, on to the dream at hand.

* * * * *

I wake up in a strange bed in a pink room with dirty taupe carpets and cheap wood paneling.  I have no idea where I am or why I’ve been sleeping there.  Four cats are on the bed with me; two are biting my fingers and the other two are still fast asleep on my shoulders, essentially pinning me down.  It is very early in the morning, maybe half past seven.  A group of obnoxious young kids bursts into the room, and they pick up some of the toys that are strewn around the floor, and play with them very loudly.  Some of the kids even jump onto the bed and start rough-housing, despite the fact that I’m still in there.  My phone slips off the bed and disappears.  I am becoming quite annoyed by now, and I crawl out of bed to look for the phone.

Finally some adults enter the room.  There are around ten in the group.  A couple of them appear to be hippie circus people preparing for a performance, and the rest are dressed in more conventional clothing.  They all start to have a surprisingly casual conversation, despite the utter chaos surrounding them.  I tell one of the older men that my phone seems to have disappeared, and that I need help finding it.  “It’s black,” I say.  I realize that’s not much of a description to go on, and I almost add the fact that it’s an iPhone, but I decide not to.  I know no one in the room, but despite that, they all seem to know me, or at least they don’t seem to be surprised that I’m staying in the room.  I feel like it would be rude for me to ask these people who they all are, so I decide to wait for a friend to appear, or perhaps someone will give me a clue as to what I’m doing there.  No one else appears, and no clues are given.

I have the vague notion that I’m on tour with a friend from BigAppleCity (who in real life is a member of that group of blue men), but he is nowhere to be seen, and my notion is vague enough that I’m not even sure he’s really supposed to there, even.  I think to myself, Maybe I’m on tour with someone else?  Maybe I’m just passing through and needed a random place to sleep?  I wander through the house a bit, to hopefully get my bearings.  I walk to the garage and see my ancient brown Toyota Celica (kinda like this one) inside.  It is a surprise to see it sitting there.  Am I on a solo road trip?  A mechanic is lying on his back on one of those roller thingies underneath the car, making a repair of some kind even though the car doesn’t need it.  I open the trunk and find that it’s completely full of toys.  I grab a blanket from a nearby workbench and stuff it in the trunk on top of the toys, because hey, you never know.

I leave the garage and the mechanic and walk back into the living room, which just so happens to be very similar to the living room in my childhood home.  I am introduced to two African guys, one of whom is a huge fan of my music (How does he know my music? is my instantaneous thought) and he keeps pushing a notebook and an orange marker toward me and asking for my autograph. I sit down on the sofa next to the two guys and take the notebook.  The huge overstuffed sofa cushion on which I’m sitting begins to swing back and forth wildly, and I’m barely able to stay seated, let alone to write anything.  I hand the notebook back to the African guy to hold until my cushion stops pitching. “This is crazy,” I tell my two new friends. “I can’t even sit on a sofa!”

The three of us begin to have a slightly philosophical conversation, and a thirteen-year-old boy walks up and plants himself right in front of my face, trying to pick a fight.  “You guys are STILL talking about that?”  He laughs and pushes me hard in the chest.

I snicker at him dismissively. “What are you doing? Go the fuck away.” He is dumbstruck by the sudden profanity, and turns and slinks away to the side of the room, muttering, “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” as if he’s autistic.  His dad, a greasy man in both the literal and the figurative sense, runs over and gets right in my face just as his son had.  Gee, I wonder where the kid learned THAT trick, I think to myself. The dad is yelling at me and gesturing toward his son, who is still muttering the F-bomb to himself while his dad is getting increasingly riled up.  It appears that I’m about to get punched.

“Fuck?” he yells. “Seriously? You have no right to talk to my son that way!”

I decide that a healthy dose of diplomacy is in order, and fast.  “I shouldn’t have said that, you’re right.  I apologize.  But didn’t you see what he did?  He shouldn’t go around picking fights.”   The guy seems placated, and walks back to join his son.

The African guy hands me the orange marker and notebook again. The marker still doesn’t write very well, and I tell him I can use the black pen that has just materialized in my hand somehow.   He insists I use the orange one, takes it back, and fiddles with it in an attempt to make it work, telling me it’s all about the balance of the art in the notebook; something weird like that.  I’m not much of a visual artist, but I half-heartedly attempt to draw something that even remotely resembles the type of things that other people have drawn already, and then I sign my name.  It is practically illegible, and unrecognizable to me.  Good enough, I think to myself, that’ll have to do.

I stand up from the sofa and walk into an empty living room, still completely mystified by everything happening around me.  I decide to search for—and hopefully find, let’s be honest—my suitcase so that I can take a shower, to clear my head and get away from all of the strange people and interactions.  I walk through a few more rooms, but my suitcase never turns up.