Crystal, Comics and Classes

MORNING OF DECEMBER 8, 2008

The second remembered dream from this night: I was in some kind of dimly-lit comic store with Richard. There were several people sitting at a table signing things/doing sketches. Richard told me who each artist was, but I didn't recognize any of them. Still, we were standing in the line.

There was one girl in the group and Richard explained that she was played the part of "Lightning Girl" (or some similar name) in the upcoming Watchmen movie (obviously there is really no such character). When I got up to the actress, I realized I had nothing for her to sign. There was a conveniently placed pack of printer paper beside the table, so I grabbed a sheet and handed it to her.

Instead of signing it, she drew a sketch of the "Lightning Girl (or whatever)" character and handed it back to me. Her signature on the sketch was Crystal Bernard, the actress from the 90's sitcom, Wings!!! I never watched that show, and who has even heard from this actress in years since then?! I don't have the faintest clue how she infiltrated my dream like this. Just plain weird.

After leaving the store, we went to a some guy's house, only now I was with Eric instead of Richard. The guy was giving us a tour of the place. Supposedly his toddler-aged son had died a year or so previously, and it seemed his slightly older son was responsible for having deliberately done it and was now in juvie. The man was sorrowfully recounting his tale to me, and as he spoke I could see re-enactments of how it happened, as though I were watching a TV. It was fairly depressing.

The man took us into a downstairs room, sort of a furnished basement, and began to show us some old memorabilia he said he'd inherited from his father. He handed us each an old record album from his collection and said we could have them as gifts.

My record album featured the "The Age of Aquarius" by the 5th Dimension! How random! Suddenly I noticed I wasn't holding a regular album sleeve, but a box of the same dimensions (except deeper). I opened the box to find several old comic books inside.

Most of the old comics featured Disney characters, and looked like they dated back to maybe the 50's or so. Toward the bottom of the stack there was a series of more generic-looking comics from the same era that heavily featured pin-up style good-girl art. I can't remember the titles or covers of most of them, but one of them featured a character called "Lambykins", and she was a "sexy" anthropomorphic sheep character. I found this fairly bizarre and somewhat perverse to have come out of the 50's. Another book had a title that referred somehow to "Fairy Tale Girls", and it had a bunch of saucy-looking renditions of female fairy tale characters in battle with each other. Most of them, I think, were Disney versions, and definitely included Alice from Alice in Wonderland, but some might have been generic, non-Disney designs.

When the man saw all of these comics, he suddenly reminded us that he was only showing these items to us, and had not, after all, given them to us (even though he definitely had originally given them).

When we came upstairs from the basement (empty handed), we were in school. The bell was ringing and the halls were busy with students scurrying to get to their classes. I panicked because I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be in class all this time. I instantly knew it was time for math class and that I had already missed the two classes before it.

But where was my backpack with my things in it?! Had I left it down in the basement? Had I left it at the store where Crystal Bernard was? As I was running about in my frenzy, I happened to see I had left my backpack and my coat lying on a table that was just sitting in the hall where I was. That was convenient.

But now I realized I didn't remember where my math class was located! And the halls were now silent as everyone was already in class. My panic increased as I began running around frantically trying to locate my class.

And the phone woke me up.