Nod

Last night I had the craziest dream.

I was in college again, but this time college happened like high school - complete with lockers. On the door inside my locker - as in all of my high school dreams - is a copy of my schedule.

I learned a long time ago that by forcing my dream to have a copy of my schedule, I won't have one of those horrible nightmares where I don't know where I'm supposed to be until it's too late and then I get there as everyone is leaving... this is as lucid as my dreaming gets, mind you.

At any rate, my schedule seems to be a bit like "college lite" as one of my classes is a "Social Correspondence" studio... it's part of my Women's Studies requirements... required of all women... yeah - crazy "college lite." Yes, I too would expect it to be a lecture, but no... it's a studio course. Having been, in real life, an art major (dual with English Lit) (and a minor in dramatic arts), I know that when one attends a studio course, one dresses casually, as they last for hours - typcially 3 - and are often labor intensive.

A lot I know... at least in dream land.

It's more like, when you attend a stuido course, you dress appropriately for the studio. When I finally made it to the classroom - after having been directed no less than three times down increasingly beautiful marble halls - I find that I alone am the only woman clad in comfortable clothes. Everyone else has arrived - ON THE FIRST DAY - with briefcases full of beautiful linen and engraved stationery, dressed in their "Sunday Casual" best dresses (though a few are even wearing short white gloves) and not a soul is there without discrete pumps, and every head is covered.

*I* - on the other hand - am wearing a pair of red thermal underpants under a pair of red and white boxers, and topped with a huge white polo shirt bearing the name of "Chip", in red, across the left breast. I am wearing pink ballet slippers and no hat. This was my all-time favorite outfit in real-life college, and thus makes sense that I would wear it in my dream-land.

Needless to say, I'm miserable, and expecting the BEAUTIFUL woman who is teaching the class to send me back to my room to collect something suitable to wear (not that I have anything suitable to wear back at my room). She doesn't, however, and I notice the extreme grace with which each and every other student in the room ACTIVELY ignores my inappropriate dress. I am even more miserable.

After class, I'm instructed by one of the upper classwomen that if I arrive like that ever again, I will be publicly shamed before being kicked out of the class (a required course) without another chance of entrance. Noting my obvious chagrin, and guessing at my utterly deficient wardrobe, she takes me under her wing, and - get this - organizes a "second-hand-drive" among all the girls in the school to get me some decent clothing. Before I know it, I'm burdened by more of "last year's styles" than I ever thought could be designed, and advised by one or two of the less affluent students of how to make modifications to them in order to bring them "up to standard."
I hear, as I'm walking away with the (obviously) kinder of my classmates - "that is assuming she knows how to sew" followed by "you mean you think she even knows what a needle is?"

As the class progresses day by day - did I mention this was a DAILY class? - so too does my manner of dress, my ease with needle and thread (in the dream I did not, in fact, know how to sew - entirely unlike my waking self), the fluency of my pen (fountain pens ONLY were allowed in the classroom), and the haughtiness of my person. By this point in the dream I am, I suspect, the snob that many of my brief acquaintance consider me.

Then, it gets worse. There is to be, I am informed, a formal event, in which each of the local schools participates, and during which the utmost of social graces is to be demonstrated at all times. All of the women from each of the schools are to travel together, "as if on a guided tour of some romantic European country" and there are penalties for those schools whose girls do not conform to the etiquette outlined in the invitation. We are, as a class, informed that it is a enormous compliment to be invited to this event, and that this is the first time in over 100 years that our school has even been considered for inclusion. The entire rest of the course is dedicated to ensuring that every woman in the course is armed with the perfect dress, the perfect shoes, the perfect manners, the perfect face and hair... the perfect everything.

We are ready - as a class we consider ourselves unbeatable - mind you, none of us has any idea what the "competetion" element of this event actually is. When we arrive the manor house - yes, that is where it's being held - is gorgous, decked out in all the decor one could imagine, replete with footmen, doorment, butlers, maids, the whole army of servants. There is no seating chart, there are no placards anywhere, there is, in short, nothing to tell us which of the various and sumptuous seating arrangements is meant for each group, and our teacher has mysteriously disappeared.

I try encouraging our group to join me "up front" at a table where there are plush chairs and several surrounding tables, all populated with girls who were obviously together as classes, but half of the group believe that we don't have the seniority to sit so close to the front. They want, instead, to take a smaller seating arrangement - a collection of loveseats and arm chairs - further back in manor - not even in the room where the events are taking place. However, there aren't enough places for all of our group to sit gracefully in that area, so I convince them to come back up to the front with me. When we get there, other girls, from another school are seated in many of the chairs at the table, but there is still enough room for each of us. The nay-sayers, seeing that there are others at the table, say that it is obviously NOT where we are meant to sit, and return to the back of the room. The rest of us (including the one upper classman who took me under her wing) take the seats at the table and wait for the evening to begin.

A sumptuous meal is served, and while I enjoy every moment of it (including knowing which fork to use, and how to write the perfect thank you letter for such an enjoyable evening), but can't help but wonder how my classmates at the rear are managing such a meal with no tables.
The entertainment portion of the evening - a lecture on something demure - passes much to the delight of all the ladies in the room - and again I wonder how the ladies at the back can even hear what's being said. Finally, just as the "awards" (again, for what, I have no idea) are about to be delivered, I rise to check on my classmates at the back of the house. They are nowhere to be seen, and I can only assume that they've already been spirited away to a holding pen to accept their award, and I return to the table terrified that we will be found out and chastised for separating as a group.

Then there's an award for most improved, and a photo of me, as I appeard at class that first day, is shown on a screen at the front of the dining area. I can hear gasps all around me, and I can only wish that the floor would swallow me whole. At the podium - at the front of the room - are the girls who were with me at the table, and re-dressed in maids' uniforms are the girls who sat at the back. There is a short speech about how I had changed, and not only into a lady, but a lady who knew where I should be seated, and what company with which I now fit, and blah blah blah... and they called me up to accept the award.

That's when I woke up.