ceramics and cake

I dreamed that I was setting up an exhibition, at some kind of art fair. Some of the people I'm sharing my stand with l know; Jack from my old class, and Nahem from long ago. Some I don’t know so much as know of. They are a couple I've come into contact with at fairs before- with a reputation for being surly, secretive and thinking that they’re great....
There's also a younger girl I don't know at all helping.
I'm tired and hot; my head is swimmy (not unlike real life). Two of the pieces I have with me are large torsos, from neck to thighs, and I'm admiring the way that they are made with one large slab slumped into a mould.... in places you can see little details, hip bones, labia, moles, skin texture... one of these pieces is two layers the top layer is grey stoneware, clearly under fired a little. It's like a towel or shirt draped over the larger torso underneath it. The under layer is earthenware, fired quite high; it's gone dark and chocolaty. I’m staring at it wondering how I’ll ever get it hung... where my space is going to be within the stand... I’m looking closely at the details... and I fall asleep

I dream that I'm on a bus heading towards a huge shopping centre; I’m exchanging pleasantries with two random handbag girls who are actually being quite friendly. When we get off the bus (it terminates at the shopping complex) I say something about really needing to pee, and they say something like 'yes, us too, lets go look for the bathroom together'.... this seems reasonable so we all set off. It one of those huge mall places, with different floors and walkways between huge chain stores and we seem to walk for an age, going up and up and trying to follow signs that always seem to end a dead-end, I stop a uniformed employee to ask about the direction that one sign is pointing (towards a blank wall) and when I turn around the two girls are gone. I think I hear muffled giggling from behind some of the racks of clothes but I decide to just continue my search alone. Shortly at the top of a ramp I see what I’m sure will be the lady's. I begin to walk into the corridor and inside I see in the mirror the reflection of a man, I come back a few steps to check the sign is for the female toilets and as it is I am a bit flummoxed... In the end the fact that I need to pee rules my thinking and I enter the room. I'm shocked at how dirty it is, and oddly the cubicles have huge yellow electric doors that swing in an arc when they open and when they close for part of the wall of the cubicle. The green LCD displays on the outside inform me that they are both presently occupied. The only other person waiting is the black man I saw in the mirror. This is all far too weird and I wake up....

I'm lying on the floor of the exhibition stand, near to the foot of someone’s large plinth. I look around and see that Nahem's work is all up on the wall, little figures stood proud of the walls surface on little steel rods, all of different lengths giving the appearance of a kind of undulating wave made up of these little delicately thin ceramic people. Besides these are hung portraits of people’s faces, subtly coloured oils, frighteningly lifelike.
Looking around for my own work I see the large torso I had been examining when I feel asleep laying on the floor, something has happened to it and the upper layer of grey has broken away in two large pieces. Part of me is appalled and freaked out about this disaster, but part of me is fascinated by what I can see of the layer underneath- textured skin where it's puckered around the nipples, the tiny mole on the labia, the delicately incised marks of hairs along my collarbone... I decide that I have to ignore the breakage and concentrate on displaying this piece to its best advantage. Looking around I try to work out where my own area is, I get up and walk around the space which is like an L shaped room now that the cladding is all up. I step around the corner and se Jack's space, his coloured belly and big sploshy coloured paintings, the cladding behind his own space is painting many rainbow shades, merging into one another, dotted and glittered and spangled with delicate decorative designs. I realise that the only empty wall ids the one besides his, it hasn’t been painted white and you can see a design of faces or masks coming through the first undercoat. They're wide eyed leering faces, mocking me. I know that I’m going to need help setting up as time is short and I look around to see who may be available to assist me hanging me work. The younger girl from before is still around and I approach her to ask for help, she seems amenable but is tired from all that she has done that day. I ask her if there’s anything I can do for her? She turns and points to where a catering stand has been set up whilst I was sleeping, under the glass are some enticing looking cream cakes and patisserie. I agree that this would be more than a fair trade and we start to queue up, we're talking about whether we should get two different types and half them so we can try more, and somehow we choose the most attractive looking gooey creations, we pay the woman at the till and begin to come away with our goodies on white paper plates.....

and I wake up.

school daze

I dreamed a boy. He was neither my current lover nor my boyfriend.

At the beginning of the dream I'm a new student in a school in a new country.
I'm hopelessly lost and he's hopelessly cute. He's not a stranger for long. I make the first move, expecting nothing but feeling cheeky. He doesn't respond immediately so I go off about my day, "nothing ventured nothing gained" I'm thinking. I'm not upset, I don't feel vulnerable, nor am I awaiting his word.
Much later I see him outside the school gates, he's watching for me. He say's something like "There's gona be nuff talk if I take on a woman", I tell him he's going to have to find a better way to describe the situation. Dark hair and wicked eyes, he's gentle with me, but even with a touch I'm alight.

I'm confident in my self, in my body and though he tries to guide me to the unspoken rules of the students. I flout them with a half smile. Wearing my high tops laced to the top, not turned over. Dressing in my usual messy assemblage, not polished and coiffured like the girls here.
I smile sweetly at the "who does she think she is?" from bints and handbag girls.

He works at some trendy venue, that I meet him at looking scruffy. He always raises one eyebrow at my 'get-up' and pulls me close...too self assured and passionate for a school boy, he sets me on fire.

It's a strange sensation, or situation... He's part of the cliques and hierarchy but he wants me, I who am 'no one'.

Somewhere in the middle of the dream I realise that I'm a student and he's a teacher. Not my own teacher, but I worry none the less that discovery would mean trouble. He teaches the younger children and I go and wait for him sometimes. Trying not to give him 'looks', or distract him from his lesson plan, I observe how he works with the kids. He makes the children feel empowered by their knowledge. He boosts their confidence and speaks to them like equals. I admire him for this very much.

By the end of the dream we are both teachers at the same school, although I'm a new member of staff, and he knows the place inside out. I still wait for him after class, he still sparks fire in my belly.

The changes are seamless and I think nothing of them until I wake.

At times during the dream I came close to the surface, but was desperate not to wake up. Even if I knew that it was not 'reality', to be allowed to belong with someone who made it feel right was far too tempting....

I dreamed that I picked up a plastic snake off of my front porch. It then turned into a real snake, yellow and gray and attempted to bite me. It had sharp teeth throughout its mouth. I had to hold it by the head, the way snake-milkers do so it would not be able to bite me. Because of this I could not let it go. Then two more snakes, yellow, appeared in my left hand and I also had to hold their heads to keep them from biting. Somehow I switched to another frame where another really large snake I was holding to keep it from biting me, yellow with a gray head, had a huge head. It's teeth in front looked harmless, but the jaw teeth were so many and all sharp as needles. I thought, oh, well, it doesn't have fangs, but then I saw into the roof of its mouth where it had huge fangs, folded back into the roof of its mouth and I knew they were full of venom.