jamming with your mom, you were a weirdo in high school

dreams are weird.

this morning's saga involves a group of people i knew in high school who weren't close friends or anything. lydia (not her real name) had called me and asked if i wanted to play in a band with her mom. for whatever reason i said sure.

now i'm at their multi-family house and it's a big, open-kitchen-living room with bright tan counters with white cabinets and walls. there's a high angled ceiling and through the windows and patio doors you can see a large yard with a pool. the dining room table has been moved and they have set up a small stage in its place. lydia's mom is cleaning up the clutter in the kitchen and we're talking about the songs she wants to play. lydia's husband (we'll call him dirk) is going to play drums. great. her dad is there but he's not involved in the 'band'. soon someone is holding a baby next to me with curly blonde hair. i don't know who's kid she is. she'd be a cute baby if her right eye wasn't sticking out so far. someone gently pushes it back in the socket.

we spend an inordinate amount of time talking about what to call the band. dad chimes in but everyone hates his ideas. no one can agree on a name so it never gets decided.

we end up jamming and it is turrrble. i'm trying to help but nothing seems to work. dirk hasn't played drums since the early nineties. everyone knows that it sucks. after a while i have to leave. better luck next time, i say.

flash forward: i'm back at the house, but this time lydia is going to sing instead of her mom. apparently watching her mom roused some sort of competitive thing between them. the dad is still there, he is in a barcalounger with no socks on. surprisingly, dirk isn't playing drums anymore. "he couldn't do it today" she says... but i get the feeling they had a big fight about it and he said 'screw you'. there's another kid there, someone to play bass or guitar. he has cropped blonde hair and is wearing a red and grey striped button up shirt. i think he's 15.

we start playing. it seems like were playing a siouxsie and the banshees song (even though i couldn't tell you what that sounds like in real life). at some point lydia said we had to be punk rock because that's what her kids like. so i took off my pants and underwear and was wearing only a long t-shirt. nevermind that little kids and her mom and dad were all there. i'm just here flapping in the breeze.

the 'practice' goes only marginally better than the previous one with the mom. very quickly i'm starting to get jaded with this project and the no pants thing.

later.... i'm outside loading up my gear (with pants). another friend of lydia's (who also was in our graduating class) has shown up to hang out. i haven't seen her in years.

"oh are you jamming with lydia's mom?"
"actually, lydia was singing today."
"that's cool"
"i haven't seen you since high school, it's been a long time"
"you were a real weirdo in high school"
"sorry, i was pretty confused back then"

after this exciting conversation, i'm back at my house. our car is stuck in the alley, something is wrong with the wheels. i leave the door open and corey and i head off to the bar. when we come back, my crazy neighbor lady is screaming bloody murder. there are cars in front of and in back of my car in the alley, cars parked in her yard, on her slab, they are everywhere. a veritable log jam of cars. the cops had already been called but they are just hanging out. this sends crazy neighbor lady into a spitting rage. we laugh and laugh as we leave.

eventually the other cars are moved and i push our car in front of the house. it's now missing a door. someone had yanked it off and threw it in the trunk.

flash forward to my childhood home. my friend trevor is driving a huge dump truck with 6 giant tractor wheels. he is tearing up the yard and my dad will be pissed. he gets to the barbed-wire fence and just drives right through it, which blows his front left tire. but that doesn't really stop him. he tears up the field beyond. then i wake up.

the end?