(no subject)
Yesterday at the clinic they put me out with fentanyl and prophenal (long story). I’m only saying this because the drugs have made me weird all day, and last night woke up from the most brilliant dream and I have to have to write it down.
I’m at some DW con, and Billie Piper is there. And somehow⎯you know how dreams are⎯we get along and spend a lot of time talking. But for some reason we don’t exchange email addresses, even though we want to. She leaves suddenly. I spend a while trying to get in touch with her through her agent, but no one believes I’m her friend.
Then I’m standing at the Rio Grande with Kyle, who is maybe five years old, and we’re on the Mexican side of the border. Let’s swim, he says, but I pull him back and point to the guard towers on the other side. They’ll shoot us, I say. We run back into the desert, hide behind greasewood bushes.
Then I am at the EL Paso Special Events Center, and I have a small part in a play. David Tennant is starring in the play. I’m wearing a dress that is silk and velvet, with a lace cape trailing off my shoulders. (I wore this dress once, when I was in a play, Everyman, in school). I don’t know what the play is, but of course I am a bit star-struck. But I’m also wishing I had gotten Billie’s email address or phone number, and I figure David can help me out.
So at the wrap party⎯there is suddenly a wrap party⎯I go to him and say, Great show! And he smiles and says, Sherry, right? And I start to correct him and then think, oh hell, for Tennant I can be Sherry. I mean, it’s a TEENY part in the show.
“Look,” I say, “I met Billie a few months ago and we were going to stay in touch but we didn’t exchange info.”
He looks unsure.
“You can just pass my info on to her,” I say. “You don’t have to give me hers. I mean, if you have it.”
“Well,” he says, “I don’t know it off-hand, but I can help you, I think.”
He leans over to a table covered with one of those white paper tablecloths, and rips a bit off. He pulls a pen out of his pocket, and starts writing on the paper. Then he straightens up and hands it to me.
“This will get you past the dogs,” he says.
Then someone taps him on the shoulder and whispers to him, he says, excuse me, but I have to go, and he leaves. I watch him walk off, and think, what a nice guy.
Then I look at the paper. It’s shaped pretty much like Idaho, about eight inches long and maybe five inches at its widest point. And on it are arcane symbols and what looks like longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates and I am able to read these coordinates and I look up and sigh and say, Damn. She’s in London.
Like this is a surprise?
So I am suddenly there. From El Paso to London, poof. But I get lost. I keep pulling out the paper and studying the symbols, trying to figure out what they are. They are written in a line⎯there are two lines⎯of these bizarre little symbols. I keep staring at them, willing them to make sense.
Because I really miss Billie, and want to see her again. In the dream she is the only friend I have. Meeting Tennant is nice, and maybe, I think, I’ll meet him again if he and Billie ever hang out, but mostly I need to find Billie.
I find myself dressed as the Monopoly guy, complete with monocle, and I’m at a fancy dress party. Everyone there is very English and all the women are gorgeous in long flowing gowns⎯I stand out like an idiotic American. I also, somehow, have an iPad with me, that works as a phone. The Brits are charmed by the iPad⎯of course they’ve seen one before, they say, but when I download a video of myself in the play with Tennant they seemed a bit pleased, as though I finally did something right. The party begins to break up⎯it’s almost dawn⎯and one of the women takes me aside and suggests a few thing I will not write down here. Let’s just say I get flustered and say “But I’m the monopoly guy and I have to find Billie!”
And she raises her eyebrows and says, “Really?” And I get very embarrassed, and attempt to explain that we are friends, and that I really have to find her⎯and at this point I realize, I remember, that I have something very important to tell her. By her I mean Billie. I do not remember what it is, but I somehow know that if I see her, I will remember.
And then I realize that she and David are an item, and it’s Georgia, not Billie, silly me, and I say to this woman⎯can you help me? I take out the piece of paper⎯I’m carrying this purse shaped like a shoe⎯and she looks at it for a bit and then laughs.
“He has such dreadful handwriting, “ she says. She hands the paper back to me.
I look at it again and then I see it. The symbols correspond to numbers. It’s a code, one I can suddenly read. I sit down for a bit to decipher it, and after I’m done, I think, this man is a bit insane. Then I laugh and whip out the iPad.
But now’s it’s pouring rain and I have to find shelter and keep the iPad and paper dry.
Then, back to the Rio Grande, my son and I, trying to decide if we should swim for it or not, when someone steps out into the water and it’s only a foot deep. I keep an eye on those towers, though.
Back in London⎯I’m wandering these side streets, trying to find someplace dry. I find a hotel and run into the lobby. It’s a tiny hotel, and they aren’t happy about me being in the lobby, but I offer to rent a room, so they let me stay. But the rooms aren’t cleaned yet, it’s still very early, so I have to go wait in this little lounge that smells like smoke and stale whiskey. I sit down on an old couch, pull out the paper and double check my work, to make sure it’s right. And then I notice some new symbols.
There are two telephone numbers. It says “leave a message” next to the first one. And under the second one he has written, we’ll let you in if you call this number and get them to speed up production.
And I think, WTF?
But I call the first number and a woman answers, and it takes me a second to realize it’s a recorded greeting. Hello, I say, after the beep, “Shelley here, calling because David told me to. He also said I should leave a message. So, um, this is it.”
I hang up and try to dial the next number, and here it gets difficult, because I keep dialing the wrong number, and after a couple of hours I’m beginning to think that David played an evil trick on me and why oh why did I ever leave El Paso?
That’s when I think, maybe he transposed the last two numbers accidentally.
Why I think this⎯have no clue. But it makes perfect sense to me.
I dial the number, and a man answers. He is very abrupt and cranky, and I push a button on the screen of the iPad and I can see him, and he’s wearing a bad suit. I say, “You MUST speed up production. What were you thinking? It should have been done AGES ago.”
And the man looks ashamed and says, yes, all right, we will, so sorry, send my apologies. He hangs up and I feel triumphant. Then I realize I’m sitting in a tiny hotel somewhere in London, and have no idea where Billie or Georgia or David are, and I think I’m going to cry.
Then there’s this commotion outside and a woman steps into the room and says, look closer!
I take the paper out again and this time I see that the coordinates are very precise, and while I am in London, I’m not at the right place in London, certainly not where I’m supposed to be. I leave the hotel, tell them to keep the money, and run out into the street. It’s stopped raining, and I navigate by some odd sense. I can just sense where they are. Turn here, now over this way a bit, oh, overshot it, backtrack, and finally I stumble up to this house. It’s getting dark. I think about Beauty and the Beast, and I think, man, she had it easy. I am so bloody tired. I walk down the side of the house to the back, and there they are, David and Georgia and Billie.
David comes to me with a glass of wine in his hands. He gives it to me, pecks me on the cheek and then flashes that famous grin.
“I knew you would get it,” he says. “Brilliant!”
And I say, “But why?”
And he says, “Because nothing is ever easy, and you have to want things to make them happen. And,” he says, “I was bored.”
I punch him in the arm. Billie laughs and then disappears. I am so bloody tired.
Georgia opens the back door into the house.
“Come on in,” she says. “Come in. It will rain again soon, and our bed is big.”
And somehow there is nothing sexual in what she says. It’s an offer of warmth, companionship.
I walk inside. David follows. I follow Georgia down a long hall, and around a corner to the right into a room that is oddly familiar. It’s goldish and blue and large and round there are round things on the walls and⎯wait a minute⎯I spin around and David is standing behind me, in THE suit, beaming.
“What?” he says. “You think you can just waltz into the TARDIS?”
And I woke up.
I’m at some DW con, and Billie Piper is there. And somehow⎯you know how dreams are⎯we get along and spend a lot of time talking. But for some reason we don’t exchange email addresses, even though we want to. She leaves suddenly. I spend a while trying to get in touch with her through her agent, but no one believes I’m her friend.
Then I’m standing at the Rio Grande with Kyle, who is maybe five years old, and we’re on the Mexican side of the border. Let’s swim, he says, but I pull him back and point to the guard towers on the other side. They’ll shoot us, I say. We run back into the desert, hide behind greasewood bushes.
Then I am at the EL Paso Special Events Center, and I have a small part in a play. David Tennant is starring in the play. I’m wearing a dress that is silk and velvet, with a lace cape trailing off my shoulders. (I wore this dress once, when I was in a play, Everyman, in school). I don’t know what the play is, but of course I am a bit star-struck. But I’m also wishing I had gotten Billie’s email address or phone number, and I figure David can help me out.
So at the wrap party⎯there is suddenly a wrap party⎯I go to him and say, Great show! And he smiles and says, Sherry, right? And I start to correct him and then think, oh hell, for Tennant I can be Sherry. I mean, it’s a TEENY part in the show.
“Look,” I say, “I met Billie a few months ago and we were going to stay in touch but we didn’t exchange info.”
He looks unsure.
“You can just pass my info on to her,” I say. “You don’t have to give me hers. I mean, if you have it.”
“Well,” he says, “I don’t know it off-hand, but I can help you, I think.”
He leans over to a table covered with one of those white paper tablecloths, and rips a bit off. He pulls a pen out of his pocket, and starts writing on the paper. Then he straightens up and hands it to me.
“This will get you past the dogs,” he says.
Then someone taps him on the shoulder and whispers to him, he says, excuse me, but I have to go, and he leaves. I watch him walk off, and think, what a nice guy.
Then I look at the paper. It’s shaped pretty much like Idaho, about eight inches long and maybe five inches at its widest point. And on it are arcane symbols and what looks like longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates and I am able to read these coordinates and I look up and sigh and say, Damn. She’s in London.
Like this is a surprise?
So I am suddenly there. From El Paso to London, poof. But I get lost. I keep pulling out the paper and studying the symbols, trying to figure out what they are. They are written in a line⎯there are two lines⎯of these bizarre little symbols. I keep staring at them, willing them to make sense.
Because I really miss Billie, and want to see her again. In the dream she is the only friend I have. Meeting Tennant is nice, and maybe, I think, I’ll meet him again if he and Billie ever hang out, but mostly I need to find Billie.
I find myself dressed as the Monopoly guy, complete with monocle, and I’m at a fancy dress party. Everyone there is very English and all the women are gorgeous in long flowing gowns⎯I stand out like an idiotic American. I also, somehow, have an iPad with me, that works as a phone. The Brits are charmed by the iPad⎯of course they’ve seen one before, they say, but when I download a video of myself in the play with Tennant they seemed a bit pleased, as though I finally did something right. The party begins to break up⎯it’s almost dawn⎯and one of the women takes me aside and suggests a few thing I will not write down here. Let’s just say I get flustered and say “But I’m the monopoly guy and I have to find Billie!”
And she raises her eyebrows and says, “Really?” And I get very embarrassed, and attempt to explain that we are friends, and that I really have to find her⎯and at this point I realize, I remember, that I have something very important to tell her. By her I mean Billie. I do not remember what it is, but I somehow know that if I see her, I will remember.
And then I realize that she and David are an item, and it’s Georgia, not Billie, silly me, and I say to this woman⎯can you help me? I take out the piece of paper⎯I’m carrying this purse shaped like a shoe⎯and she looks at it for a bit and then laughs.
“He has such dreadful handwriting, “ she says. She hands the paper back to me.
I look at it again and then I see it. The symbols correspond to numbers. It’s a code, one I can suddenly read. I sit down for a bit to decipher it, and after I’m done, I think, this man is a bit insane. Then I laugh and whip out the iPad.
But now’s it’s pouring rain and I have to find shelter and keep the iPad and paper dry.
Then, back to the Rio Grande, my son and I, trying to decide if we should swim for it or not, when someone steps out into the water and it’s only a foot deep. I keep an eye on those towers, though.
Back in London⎯I’m wandering these side streets, trying to find someplace dry. I find a hotel and run into the lobby. It’s a tiny hotel, and they aren’t happy about me being in the lobby, but I offer to rent a room, so they let me stay. But the rooms aren’t cleaned yet, it’s still very early, so I have to go wait in this little lounge that smells like smoke and stale whiskey. I sit down on an old couch, pull out the paper and double check my work, to make sure it’s right. And then I notice some new symbols.
There are two telephone numbers. It says “leave a message” next to the first one. And under the second one he has written, we’ll let you in if you call this number and get them to speed up production.
And I think, WTF?
But I call the first number and a woman answers, and it takes me a second to realize it’s a recorded greeting. Hello, I say, after the beep, “Shelley here, calling because David told me to. He also said I should leave a message. So, um, this is it.”
I hang up and try to dial the next number, and here it gets difficult, because I keep dialing the wrong number, and after a couple of hours I’m beginning to think that David played an evil trick on me and why oh why did I ever leave El Paso?
That’s when I think, maybe he transposed the last two numbers accidentally.
Why I think this⎯have no clue. But it makes perfect sense to me.
I dial the number, and a man answers. He is very abrupt and cranky, and I push a button on the screen of the iPad and I can see him, and he’s wearing a bad suit. I say, “You MUST speed up production. What were you thinking? It should have been done AGES ago.”
And the man looks ashamed and says, yes, all right, we will, so sorry, send my apologies. He hangs up and I feel triumphant. Then I realize I’m sitting in a tiny hotel somewhere in London, and have no idea where Billie or Georgia or David are, and I think I’m going to cry.
Then there’s this commotion outside and a woman steps into the room and says, look closer!
I take the paper out again and this time I see that the coordinates are very precise, and while I am in London, I’m not at the right place in London, certainly not where I’m supposed to be. I leave the hotel, tell them to keep the money, and run out into the street. It’s stopped raining, and I navigate by some odd sense. I can just sense where they are. Turn here, now over this way a bit, oh, overshot it, backtrack, and finally I stumble up to this house. It’s getting dark. I think about Beauty and the Beast, and I think, man, she had it easy. I am so bloody tired. I walk down the side of the house to the back, and there they are, David and Georgia and Billie.
David comes to me with a glass of wine in his hands. He gives it to me, pecks me on the cheek and then flashes that famous grin.
“I knew you would get it,” he says. “Brilliant!”
And I say, “But why?”
And he says, “Because nothing is ever easy, and you have to want things to make them happen. And,” he says, “I was bored.”
I punch him in the arm. Billie laughs and then disappears. I am so bloody tired.
Georgia opens the back door into the house.
“Come on in,” she says. “Come in. It will rain again soon, and our bed is big.”
And somehow there is nothing sexual in what she says. It’s an offer of warmth, companionship.
I walk inside. David follows. I follow Georgia down a long hall, and around a corner to the right into a room that is oddly familiar. It’s goldish and blue and large and round there are round things on the walls and⎯wait a minute⎯I spin around and David is standing behind me, in THE suit, beaming.
“What?” he says. “You think you can just waltz into the TARDIS?”
And I woke up.