Scheduling the Mysterious Man

MORNING OF AUGUST 17, 2009

This is the first of two dreams from this night. The other is posted separately, just above this one....

I was at work and was supposed to schedule a shoot with some new personality in town who was putting on programs in schools for kids. Rather than set up an appointment by phone, I drove to the location to set things up in person.

I arrived at what looked like a small little store in the downtown area. Upon walking up to the entrance, I could see in the windows that the "store" actually contained one small classroom of children, with small groups of them sitting around a series of circular tables. A man of middle eastern descent was in the middle of the room, seated on a child-sized chair of his own, speaking to them.

There was a desk at the front entrance where you had to sign in. I spoke to the lady at the desk and told her I was there to schedule a shoot with whatever-the-speakers-name-was (the middle eastern guy). As I said his name, I saw him glance over in my direction even as he was still speaking to the kids.

The lady at the desk seemed confused that I was only trying to schedule an appointment and that I didn't want to actually film the man right now. She was adamant that I could not film anything, until she finally realized that I only wanted to schedule it for later. And then she seemed to think it was weird that I had driven out instead of just calling them (which it indeed was). At any rate, I got a really weird vibe from this place, not the least of all because the people running it seemed so wary of me.

I can't remember if I successfully made an appointment or not. Afterward, my mom called me while I was in the car and reminded me that I should stop and pick up some flowers for my grandmother while I was out. The upcoming weekend was supposed to be either Mother's Day or her birthday (and either of those events have already passed for the year in real life anyway).

It's weird that the layout of the town in the dream was entirely fictional, but I knew exactly where I was going on my way to the store that sold flowers. It's like I'd been there before. I remember driving very deliberately and pulling up there. It was in an old residential area. One of the old houses was the store in question. It had been slightly remodeled, so for a brief moment I thought I'd come to the wrong place, but I hadn't.

The flower/plant selection in the place was pitiful. Almost the only thing they had was little potted cacti. There were other random odds and ends in the store. On a magazine rack I saw some material about that man I'd been trying to schedule a meeting with before. It seems like a few more things happened, but from here on out it's more or less a blur.