I have a recurring dream that there's a class I've been forgetting to go to all semester. However well I do in the others, this one is an F, probably an unavoidable F, come to think of it (how do I keep blotting it out so completely?), and I bet there's a test today or tomorrow. Fear rises. I don't remember how I'd find out when the next test is, or what's on it. Where did I put the syllabus? Don't I have one? It would be so embarrassing to go and see the professor—I probably won't. Sometimes, the dream includes the detail that I never finished high school, so I'm back in high school as an adult to get this out of the way, and I'm the only one like that, which makes me self-conscious. At first, I'm glad to finally get around to this. Then I realize I've somehow completely forgotten that class all quarter, and I'm going to fail it. So I'm back in high school remedially, but I'm failing it.
Considering that I spend so much time teaching high schoolers, and there actually were classes in college just like that, the only thing that's really surprising is that after I wake up, I still fully believe there's that panicky class I haven't been going to, and it takes a few minutes to convince myself it isn't true. On the other hand, I haven't finished my Master's project in 8 years and counting, so there's that.
This time, my mother was driving me to school. We stopped at a supermarket and spent a strange amount of time there, so I prepared mentally to arrive at lunch. She took a photo of the checkout conveyor and put it on Facebook (she's never used social media, and it didn't exist then). Back in the car whirring down the main road to school, I closed my eyes and imagined I was on a yellow bus; and I was, looking out the window. I tried to think about less typical things to photo and post (in the dream apparently my mom's conveyor belt snapshot was a total cliche). I fell asleep. When I woke up, my brother was to my left driving the car, his present age. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?" I asked. He sort of chuckled and said, "Hm. How DID I get here?"
