Growing up near a small town meant that at least half the people I graduated from high school with were also people that I went to kindergarten with. Escaping said small town has meant that I have had little contact with any of these people since. I did finally make an appearance at a class reunion last summer, but otherwise I probably average somewhere around two contacts a year through any medium with any member of my graduating class. And, it's not like I'm one of these people who is continually reliving stories from my younger years, either. I won't be one of those guys in his forties who sits up in his underwear late at night, flipping through pages from his high school yearbook while he eats soggy Cheerios and cries. The folks I grew up with, by and large, just don't cross my mind anymore.
So why do they keep showing up in my dreams?
Seriously, I'm not somebody who spends a lot of time mulling over his dream life, and the only reason that I've ever thought it might be interesting to keep a dream journal was precisely so I could make a plot showing exactly how freakishly-disproportionately-often classmates showed up in my dreams relative to how often I crossed paths with any of them anymore. Last night, I dreamed this this guy I went to high school with--who is now the financial manager for an optometry clinic somewhere in Nebraska--was a collegue of mine in Wisconsin Sociology who was just awarded tenure by the department. I was puzzled by the promotion, as I tried to think of any articles I could remember the guy publishing, and, correctly, I couldn't. So, anyway, even if my classmates are not actually candidates for tenure in academia, they do seem to have achieved permanent positions in my dreamworld. I hope they don't mind working nights.
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8 comments:
What’s better, dreaming about your high school friends (unfairly) getting tenure, or you participating in a naked convention (like this one blogger I also happen to read)?
was this h.s. classmate in any way a "competitor" of yours?
By an incredible coincidence, I dreamed about you last night, Jeremy! You were still in college, my son and I came to visit you, and I can still SEE the drawings you had tapped to your dorm room door (in the dream)! Of course, I also dreamed that I was walking from New York City to Florida...
btw, who was it? any hints?
I always dream
t'would'st seem
of donuts supreme
chocolate n' cream
my smile do'th beam
-LDM
I always dream
t'would'st seem
of donuts supreme
chocolate n' cream
my smile do'th beam
-LDM
I just discovered your blog and it makes me laugh even though I am depressed. Do you really live in a RV? Please post some pictures of the outside/inside of your RV.
replies to -
jnsys: The part about my still being in college isn't far off, really. As for the person from high school, it's not any secret since I posted where he is now, but I feel weird just typing his name -- his father was our school's band director.
anon, 7:31pm: I appreciate your finding my blog and am pleased that it cheered you up, but, you know, it's a little intrusive to ask somebody to put pictures of their abode on the Internet. I'm not much of an e-xhibitionist. How about this: you send me pictures of where you live, and I'll post those along with maybe some photos of the RV.
Hmm...I have kind of a similar thing. My dreams tend to contain *current* people (those I see and talk to most days) but they take place in the wrong location. Like when I was in high school, all my school dreams took place in my elementary school. Now all my school dreams take place either at my high school or somewhere at Penn State. Presumably when I've finished here, I can start having school dreams that take place in the Social Science building. Woo. (On another note, I have way too many school dreams. School makes me totally neurotic. In high school, I used to sit up in bed at 3 am with the absolutely correct answers to the calculus problems I couldn't answer before I went to sleep. I'm just saying.)
--EGP
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