The Dreams of Hannah

I dreamed I signed up for intermediate acting at the college, and it turned out it was being taught by Stephen Fry. I looked him up online because I thought he was still doing his TV show QI in England, and Wikipedia said, yes, he was, but when he wasn't over there he was teaching college in the States. So I figured, hey, cool, that works, and went to the class. (A few times Hugh Laurie wandered by to visit and sit in on the classes. One of those times he was wandering around the cafeteria looking lost and I asked him if he was looking for the acting class. He said yes, and followed me down to where the class was.)

Our first assignment was really more like the performance of lit assignment - we had a book of poems and we had to choose one of them and recite it. I chose one that, turns out, was written by Stephen himself. I told Dad, "That way he'll tell me what it means and I won't have to come up with my own interpretation!" The poem started off with a line about little yellow hard hats bobbing in the darkness, and there was a verse later on about little ducks. I asked him what it meant and he went on a long rampage about nuclear war. Then he told me that this poem would be more effective if I dressed in a cowboy outfit and recited it in a southern accent, so I said okay.

Then it was the day of the performance. I was sitting with my mom and dad watching the other performances (and, actually, so were a LOT of people, despite the fact that it was just supposed to be a small assignment). Suddenly I realized that we hadn't had ANY practice days between my assignment and the performance, and I hadn't memorized any of my poem. I wondered if I could go and memorize it really fast, or maybe print it out and read it instead of reciting it.

I ran off to a computer lab to print it, but when I came back, everyone was walking out of the theater. Turns out PJ was there, too, and for some reason was being *really* loud and disruptive and yelling greetings to people in the front row during the performances, and the police came and shut us all down. Stephen was very, very miffed about it but I thought, "Cool! Now I won't have to actually recite my poem!"

Labels: dad, PJ, stephen fry

I dreamed I was at the church, heading up some sort of missions trip, but nobody actually wanted to do missions work, so finally I screamed at the teens, "Okay, if you WANT to do anything, we're going to be over here!" and most of them joined us. Turns out we were doing puppet shows for kids who lived in the mountains, or something like that.

At the end of the time, all the kids went back to the church, but then someone came up with a message from PJ. Apparently the church van had been parked on one of the mountain roads, and the police wouldn't let him leave. When I asked why not, the guy made all sorts of gestures and said, "The only gas they let him use for the van is DOUBLE WIDE!"

Whatever that meant, it soon became clear somehow that I was going to have to get some money up to PJ and the van, and fast. The cost was rising with every moment I wasted. So I ran around asking people who had been on the missions trip to contribute money to this. I got a lot of money, but it wasn't enough. I knew PJ as going to be furious at me for taking so long.

Labels: PJ

I dreamed that the only building we could use for youth group was the high school. One time we went in there to have youth group but they kicked us out because they were having a trivia contest there instead. I complained to PJ but he said, "That's just one of the risks you have to take when you use a school instead of a church!"

Labels: PJ

I dreamed PJ was having a movie night at the church and I recommended "Plan 9 From Outer Space" (does make for a good viewing if you have people around to mock but I would hardly have recommended it). But we only got about 15 minutes into it before people were complaining it was stupid. We took a break and all the kids went to complain to PJ, who said, "I DIDN'T DECIDE THIS!! Talk to Hannah!" and I kept trying to explain why I had chosen it, but most of the kids just rolled their eyes and left.

Labels: PJ, plan 9 from outer space

I dreamed that a large group of people from our church were going to that ApologetiX concert I went to last week (except it was in a completely different auditorium). It was me and my sisters, Mom and Dad, PJ and Dacia, Emily A., Sammy E., Pastor & Jane (yeah, totally their kind of music... NOT!) and Marissa from my Spanish class, and possibly others.

I was sitting in the very front row with Emily, Sammy, and Marissa. At one point Emily started talking and I kept trying to shut her up cuz I wanted to hear what was going on. There was a woman onstage (she looked like this storyteller that taught a workshop at our local library) and she could hear what Emily was saying, and she turned and snapped, "Hush! You're a disgrace to the people of [my town]!" Which was an odd thing to say, seeing as how Emily doesn't even LIVE in my town.

So from then on Emily just whispered, but apparently she was right in front of a mic or something, cuz the band could hear her onstage. After one of the songs, Karl looks at her and goes, "YOU DESERVE TO HAVE YOUR EYES GOUGED OUT!" and I was like "Whoa, Emily, what did you SAY!?" but she wouldn't tell me.

The concert ended and I just hung around with the band for awhile (they kept making fun of me because I was walking weird... I really WAS walking weird, I would have made fun of myself as well) and suddenly I realize that the rest of my group has left. I ask where the phones are but then realize I can't call home, they JUST left and it's at least an hour's drive home. So in an hour I'll call them and wait around an hour for them to come pick me up. I keep looking around for someone I know who can maybe take me home, but don't see anyone.

I decide to stay for the evening church service. One of the ladies tells me, "Oh, yes, we have a very evolutionary church." So I'm sitting in a pew, waiting for the service to start, when Bethany wanders in crying. I say, "Oh, they left you behind too?" and she nods, so I invite her to sit with me until it's time for us to call them. Then Bekah and Elizabeth wander in crying, and I think, "My word, they left EVERYONE behind!"

The church service was pretty freaky. This dude in a suit stood up and crouched over the podium and looked menacing while the words "Listen To Thee, O My Lord" were put up on a screen. (Which doesn't even make SENSE.) I think the dude might have read a psalm, but it really wasn't much of a service.

Labels: apologetix, bekah, bethany, dacia, dad, dalmus, elizabeth, emily a, jane m, marissa from spanish, mom, PJ, sammy e

I dreamed a long dream where we were at a hotel with a lot of people, including my family, Nich and Jayme (no Andie, though, I wonder where she went?), a maid, and a psychopath. The psychopath was murdered, and then I found the maid leaning over this giant hole that went to nowhere. She looked up and I could see in her eyes that she wanted me to push her into the hole, so I did, and then wrote about it in my journal, which was making me a bit worried that I'd killed her.

At one point we were trying to get my family back into the van, and my mom had this ultra-cool neon sign that reported how many people were NOT in our van. It'd count down from 10 to 0, and when it was at 0 that meant everyone was in and we could go. So me, Bethany, and Mom were in a large group of people and then finally saw the sign at 3, so we went and drove off in the van.

Next thing I know, I'm at youth group, chatting with a bunch of people, and PJ comes up and drops my prayer journal in my lap. I'm surprised and ask him where the heck he got it, and am told that it's now a requirement to be a youth leader that PJ read any prayer journals we've kept over the past year or so. He then proceeds to say very loudly in front of the entire youth group that I can't be a youth leader, my entries are too depressing and I obviously don't have the joy of the Lord. He also makes some comment like, "And like 3/4 of it are about... MUCHACHOS!" (Which is very not true of my real prayer journal. Heh. My journal entries are generally stuff about me spiritually or friends.)

He also protested to the fact that the first half of it *wasn't* a prayer journal 'cause I used a used notebook. Apparently I had like Betty Crocker recipes in the first half of it. He's flipping through the pages saying, "And, yeah, see, see, I didn't like all this Betty Crocker stuff!"

Labels: bethany, jayme, mom, nich, PJ

I dreamed, first of all, that Broadway was reviving The Music Man and PJ tried out and got the part of Harold Hill. So on my way to Circa 21, I was riding with him and Dacia, and he had a cassette tape of the show and was singing along to it so he could learn his part. Dacia had this disgusted look on her face and was like, "He does this ALL THE TIME now!"

Instead of Circa 21 however, they dropped me off at the church and left. There was a wedding going on at the church, so I just sat outside in the hallway and waited for someone to come get me. Then this samurai dude showed up and sat next to me. Out of the blue, he goes, "Soooo where do you want to live when you grow up and get married?" I asked him where that came from and he said, "Well I really think that we could be good together, you know?" And I told him I'd think about it, and left.

The next day I look outside and he's driving up in a limo. He gets out and leans against the limo, obviously waiting for me to come out and give him my answer. I go outside to tell him no, but right as I get to the limo, this woman on the inside of the limo GRABS the samurai dude, pulls him inside the car, and speeds away! I remember thinking, "Aww, she doesn't want him to marry me. Good." And going back inside my house.

Labels: circa 21, dacia, PJ, the music man

We're on a missions trip and I'm a leader. PJ tells us that there’s this homicidal maniac down the street from us and we're supposed to disarm him. For some reason we don’t find this weird at all, we're all just like, "Oh, okay, whatever works."

So we head down to this guy's house with like pitchforks and stuff, and we keep sneaking around his house trying to find him, and somehow we end up stuck underneath this shed that’s lifted half up off the ground. Every time one of us reaches over to try to open the door so we can escape, this long neck (erm, head attached, and presumably body attached at the other end as well except you can’t see it from where we are) that kind of looks like a giraffe with a lion's head but it kind of has feathers… anyway, it swoops it and glares at us until we close the door again. There are four of these creatures and they won't let us escape.

Suddenly there’s this head that pops up into the middle of the floor. It's Elvis wearing overalls. Turns out this is the crazy homicidal maniac we're supposed to disarm. But then the church bus shows up and PJ says we're out of time so we have to go back to the school to shower.

When we get back, we've got 45 minutes to shower and then we have to be someplace else. So I walk down to the room with the showers in it and realize I've forgotten my brush (although why I can’t just brush my hair later is a mystery to me). So I run back to get it. I go back to the shower room and realize I’ve forgotten something else. This keeps happening until I’ve got almost no time left to actually shower.

I walk into the shower room with about a minute and a half left, and I'm wearing this really weird bathing suit thing that is this… really, really ugly blue, black and red body suit type thing. With shoulder pads. It is probably the ugliest thing I’ve seen in my whole life that is possible to wear. So I walk into the shower room with this on and Sarah J and Kayla and Angela are all in there. Sarah just sort of laughs at me and leaves, and Kayla looks at me and says, "I like that suit. It… accentuates the positive." And I sort of deflect whatever she was saying by saying, "I don’t have anything positive about me," and I realize that Angela's saying the exact same thing. Uh! How wudeful, non?

So then I realize I have about fifteen seconds to shower, so I run back to the sleeping room where I find this little paper on me. I start punching holes in it and all these weird symbols appear on the paper that apparently signify that I’ve taken all these different math classes. Suddenly Kayla's dad is there, too, and he says, "May I see your credentials, please?" and I thought to myself, Well, I'll just give them my credentials and PRETEND I showered, and so I hand over the little paper to him.

Then run down to this big room where people are sitting in a circle on folding chairs. My Spanish instructor is there, though, and she comes up to me with something in her hands. "I have something for you," she says, "because you said that you liked music and baseball."

I see the confused stares of everyone around me because as everyone knows, I do not like baseball. Then I remember that back when Spanish started, they asked some of my hobbies and I couldn’t think of any at all, so I just wrote "baseball."

I don’t want to be caught by my peers in a lie, so I sort of try to blow it off and go, "Well… uh, I don’t really mind baseball…"

My instructor gives me this confused look and is like, "But you said you loved it!" and she gives me a little baseball bookmark.

Labels: angela w, elvis presley, kayla, PJ, sarah j

I had one of those long involved dreams where EVERYONE is in it. I remember being in a car with Katie, sitting in the passenger seat. She was driving me and a couple girls somewhere, and the guys were following in a car behind us. Except there really weren't any other girls in the van, but Tim (well he's her brother so I guess that makes sense in sort of a dream way that she has to drive him wherever we're going) and Ethan were both there and complaining about this school parade they were in together. (Although considering one's at SHS and one's at...er, whatever middle school is in Milledgeville, that's rather unlikely that they'd be in a school parade together.) Apparently some gym teacher, a Mr. someone-or-other, was notorious for doing cheesy things at these parades.

The girls (or...er, what was supposed to be the girls' car anyway) arrived at our destination and the guys were there already and very irate, because we didn't wait for them at some place. "You were supposed to wait!" they kept saying. "And we were waiting for you to wait!"

The other bits I remember is us all being in the van on our way home from a missions trip (see, it's that missions trip coming back to haunt me again) and PJ stopped off at a McDonald's for people to go in and eat. I somehow magically transported a strawberry milkshake (ew) from Steak & Shake across the street into the seat next to me. As soon as I got it, however, I realized I didn't really like strawberry and much preferred chocolate. Then PJ and the rest of the peoples showed up and PJ said, "I forgot to mention you guys could go across to Steak & Shake if you wanted!" Then he started up the van and said, "Yeah...I had about 20 of those shakes last night...yum!"

Then we were in the church basement talking and Melanie had a can of 7-Up and she and Bethany were mixing it with her milkshake (sort of like a root beer float I suppose except a 7-Up float) and they were all amazed by how the ice cream settled to the bottom and the 7-Up stayed up at the top. Nich pointed out that he and Jayme usually put chili in between the layers of ice cream and 7-Up, and everyone responded appropriately: "Ew!!!"

Then we were in the church basement but it was really an airplane, and this really goofy-looking lady walks in with like a feather boa and a stupid hat on. She goes up to the front row, removes Andie's baby seat from a chair, and seats herself there and says with this really goofy voice, "I think I'll sit here." Paula apparently got really ticked off about that, and stood up and gave this long speech about how she was "Imammitating" us. In my dream this did have a significance, it was a messed-up prounciation of the word "Imitating" and she really meant more along the lines of "Corrupting." Yes, confusing. But yeah, and she was yelling at the woman for having a top cut too low (but it really WASN'T - it was perfectly acceptable!) and said in disgust, "Look at that! Blood running everywhere!"

Yeah... wow...

Labels: andie, bethany h, ethan, jayme, katie, melanie, nich, paula, PJ, tim

I had a long dream about a missions trip. At one point, we were eating hamburgers, and I sensed that Stefanie wanted to talk, so I pulled my chair up to hers and she started talking but she was talking really quietly so I couldn't hear all that she had said, only that Tim was in the Special Olympics. So I was thinking, "Oh my gosh! What happened to him?" but I prayed out loud for him and was like, "Lord, please help Tim with whatever's wrong with him..."

Then I heard this burst of laughter behind me, and I turned around and Angela was there laughing hysterically. "What are you laughing at?" I asked, but she just kept laughing and shaking her head. "What did I say?" More laughter and head-shaking. "What did SHE say?" I asked, pointing toward Stefanie. Finally she gathered herself enough to say, "Tim isn't IN the Special Olympics, he volunteered to HELP at the Special Olympics."

Then at some point, Sarah and Jasmine were standing up on chairs and talking about the last missions trip. Jasmine was like, "And all you did the whole week was whine" (in a very whiny tone) "'I wanna go home! I wanna go home!' And then when we started to go home you were like, 'I wanna stay here! I wanna stay here!'"

This was all like in the backyard of a hotel while we were waiting for PJ and the other leaders to return from checking out.

Labels: angela w, jasmine h, PJ, sarah j, stefanie, tim

I dreamed the youth group was going to South Dakota again in the van. PJ was really irritated because he kept driving into ditches (like DEEP ditches). So when it happened again, he climbed out and apparently something was wrong with the van and he couldn't fix it. He and some other adult leader (not sure who exactly it was) were kneeling a few feet from the van, so I went up to him and he was really really ticked because his shirt was covered with oil and he didn't have any shirt to change into. (Rather intelligent of him coming on a week-long trip without extra clothes. *Rolls eyes*) I told him I had a large-ish shirt that might fight him and he just swatted me away and stomped off to the next town, I think it was to get tools to fix the van.

So we were all sitting in the van (and, might I add, B'qi was there too) and someone screamed, "LOOK! A BUFFALO!" and sure enough, out running along the highway was a buffalo. The van was perched precariously right on the edge of a drop (not a very large one, but still), so I kept telling them not to make any noise or the buffalo would come over here and push us over. I knew that some of them would scream, but I kept hoping they'd listen to me and not scream. However, the buffalo got closer and closer and finally just put his head in the window. I was shocked and then remembered we didn't have any glass in that window for some reason.

Then the buffalo butted us with its head and we rolled over until the van was upside down. It didn't have a ceiling at this point, and so the teens were all standing on the ground with the van floor over their heads. They all started screaming, and I somehow got out and yelled at the buffalo to "go home." Then I pushed until I got the van upright again. It rolled over and took all the teens with it so that we were back in our normal stance.

Labels: b'qi, PJ

I had a long involved dream last night that I'm going to try to recount.

I do remember I was listening to Lea Salonga sing "On My Own." I have a vague feeling that I WAS Eponine...

But then that changed, and Amanda, me, and some other girl who I can't visualize (might have been Carly, but I just have this feeling she had dark skin) were sitting near the door of this room. I think it was a Sunday school room. We were having a co-ed Sunday school lesson that day, and instead of sitting in a chair, I sat by the door. Amanda came and sat by me and this other girl sat there, too, so that we were in a little triangular pattern, completely blocking the door. I remember feeling a little sense of "awww" that my friends were willing to sit on the floor to make me feel like I wasn't completely out of place.

Then the guys started coming in, and they had to step over our heads to the middle of the circle and then over our heads again to get out of the circle. As Tyler came through, he commented, "Oh, how cute, they're all sitting together!" But then Canaan and Allen showed up, and Canaan was complaining about us blocking his way.

I remember, then, sitting in a pew (but in a tiny little church - still supposed to be Harvest Time but the building was really little) and singing a song called "Brilliant Soldier" that someone from the church had written. It wasn't really much of a chorus, it kept mentioning times on the clock, like 10:30 and 2:25.

Then we were in the Sunday school room again, and Abbie was telling me how she could put the words to "Brilliant Soldier" to the tunes of five popular songs. So I was trying to figure out. I could almost put it to the tune of "Complicated" (but it actually turned into "So Yesterday" because it had that bridge in the middle: "At least not today, not today, not today...")

And then we were at youth, and I suddenly remembered that PJ was resigning as youth pastor and just working on the sound board instead. It had been a sudden decision, but nobody seemed to care that he was gone. In his place, was this dude dressed up kind of like the scarecrow from The Legend of Zelda, except he was supposed to be "Brilliant Soldier" (yeah, like the song). It was all like a VBS program except it was for us,and nobody caught on except for me that it was all weird. Then I looked over toward the sound booth and PJ was wiping a tear from his eye, almost as if he was going, "What has this come to?"

The only thing I remember after that is talking to Amanda and saying, "Don't you CARE that everything has changed?" and she said, "What?" But she only seemed to be concerned about my cousin Mandy - apparently she knew something I didn't.

Labels: abbie, allen, canaan, carly, lea salonga, les miserables, manda, mandy, PJ, the legend of zelda, tyler

I had a dream last night that Dad and I were in the Chicago area while SEMP was going on. I don't remember why we were there, but we decided to drop in on Wheaton College and see how SEMP was going.

I thought that we had to have a pass or something to get in, but apparently we didn't, because we went right into the parking lot (which was very small, I might add) and heard PJ talking and shouting orders. We went into this small brick building where half the youth group was hanging around (even people who aren't even in the high school yet, like Macie).

Apparently all the people who were hanging around had gotten sick and couldn't go out witnessing. I remember Amanda and Tyler and Macie and Abbie and Natalie were all there. Tyler kept running to the bathroom to throw up.

Then I decided, for some reason, to visit the bathroom and see what it looked like. It was seperated from the rest of the building by a curtain of golden tassels and the toilet had a golden rim and I remember thinking, "Wow, this is a pretty nice bathroom..."

Natalie opened the curtain at that point. I think she had been looking for me because it was time to go or something.

And thus ended my dream.

Labels: abbie, dad, macie, manda, natalie, PJ, semp, tyler

I dreamed that the church was on an island so the only way people could get there was on a boat. I lived in a house on the island so every Sunday morning I would watch the people coming to church and identify them. I don't know why I found this so amusing . . .

Anyways then I went into the church building and into the fellowship hall where my Sunday school class was taking standardization tests. I went over, picked up a test form, and sat down in a chair. But then the test forms turned into construction paper and Paula told me we were making "happy pictures" to stick on balloons and float them up to the ceiling. Everyone was writing things like "God Rules" and "Jesus is Awesome" on construction paper and gluing them to the balloons. I remember wondering why a high school class was doing this . . . why weren't like the kindergarteners?

I thought for a long, long time what to write on my card but couldn't come up with anything, but I kept blowing my nose, so before long I had an enormous wad of tissues. I went to put them in the trash but Alisha screamed at me not to go in the kitchen, so I put them in the trash can outside the kitchen and accidentally knocked over this box of crayons. Everyone gasped and someone said, "UH-OH! YOU BROKE PJ'S CRAYONS!"

Beth and I hurriedly started picking them up. They had really quirky color names though, like "Dosky 3" and "Bear in the Big Blue House--The Crayon That Wipes Away All Fears." As we did this, Beth was taping herself talking about what was going on. Periodically she would rewind and listen to what she had just said. At one point she rewound and listened to herself saying something along the lines of "We are so ashamed. We have replaced all of our youth pastor's special crayons with normal ones."

As she said this, PJ came in the room but she didn't try to turn it off or anything, she just let it play. And then she said, "PJ! We found some books with pictures of you and Geon and Deon but they were after Geon died . . . what happened?"

PJ stormed into the room, began picking up his crayons, and started screaming "WE DO NOT EXPLAIN THINGS TO LITTLE CHILDREN! WE EXPLAIN THINGS ONLY TO THE WEBSTERS!" I swear, in the dream I thought he was possessed or something.

And then I woke up.

Labels: alisha, beth a, paula, PJ

I had a dream that us youth groupers were all fighting each other with costumes on. I was dressed as a Narn (from Babylon 5) and PJ was dressed as a Hawaiian surfer and I think Jenni was dressed as a knight... Then I was tryig to remember the name of a brontosaurus, so I kept going, "Um, brachiosaurus! No...apatosaurus! No...stegosaurus! No...dinonychus!"

And at that moment, as I said "dinonychus," Kyle leaped off this shelf (Kyle in Illinois, not Kyle in California) screaming "DINONYCHUS!" and claws came out of his hands and feet and he had this icky black goo all over him and then he picked up a guitar and started swinging it around his head and I knew he was going to throw it at me so I picked up my camera and started swinging it around and then he threw the guitar at me but he missed even though he was only standing like two feet away from me (great aim, huh?) and so I threw the camera at him and he sort of shot out through the doors.

Labels: babylon 5, jenni f, kyle m, PJ