Weird Dreams

Everybody thinks their own dreams are fascinating, but it is usually pretty boring to listen to other people’s dreams.

That is why God invented blogs:  an outlet for self-indulgent expressions that more often than not bore other people.

The truth is that I have the most freaking phenomenal dreams in the world. Vivid, entertaining, like movies. I like to think that it is because I am a very creative and interesting person and that boring people have really lame dreams or don’t dream at all.

I don’t trust people who don’t dream. Something is off with those types.

Anyway, back to me and my fascinating dreams!

Lately, I have been dreaming in musical form. That’s right. As the dream goes along, I and other characters in the dream will randomly break into song in order to progress the narrative.

The best part is that the musical format is applied to dreams that are pretty mundane, content-wise. For example, last night, I was dreaming that I was buying an enormous roll of tape at an office store. But I was singing about the roll of tape and then all of the office depot workers started tossing office supplies at me and as I caught them, I would belt out their make and model.

Fascinating, right?

Young and Restless?

Lately, I’ve been thinking that I am part of the young and the restless – not in a soap opera sense, though.  As I am nearing the quarter century mark, I feel that I am still kind of young enough to want to do fun, exciting things with my life, and I am sort of restless these days.

It may be linked to a feeling of senioritis creeping in. Next year will be my fourth year in the program. Fourth year would normally be senior year if I wasn’t getting a PhD. Just like in high school and college, I am starting to wonder what I should do with my life, what the next chapter will be.

Last semester completely solidified for me that I am doing exactly what I should be doing with my life. I love teaching. I love research. I love sociology. I am rock solid about getting the PhD and becoming a professor.

At the same time, I am getting increasingly interested in the possibility of doing field work for my dissertation research somewhere other than where I am now. Maybe just for a year. If I could live in a city for awhile, that would be excellent. Perhaps Chicago, DC, or Philadelphia. Even Nashville might be cool.

I’m not ready to settle down. I don’t want the place that I get a job to be the next and last place that I ever live. I still have so much exploring to do! I want to get to know a new city, make it my place, figure out the neighborhoods, develop new friendships.

There is a part of me that would be scared to leave my comfort zone. I talk and dream of big adventures, but I’m also a bit of a wuss when it comes to change. I like my apartment and am pretty content with most aspects of my life here. Big decisions like this are risky, but it is also risky to stay put and stagnate.

I’m going to give it some more thought.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

Ego Boost/Ego Bust

Since this blog is nothing if not a forum on my ego, I will share the highlights and lowlights of Being Biscotti in the latest installment of my long-running blog series entitled “my outrageous ego.”

Ego Boost #1 – August 2008

One Sunday morning in August, I dropped by the nearby grocery store to pick up a few items. I had not showered and had just thrown on the same sundress that I had worn the day before. I was basically gross. As I was checking out, I felt like someone was staring at me so I turned around to see a young man in line behind me. I noticed that he then moved to the next check out line. After I paid, I saw him again in the parking lot, but thought nothing of it.

The next day I received a facebook message from a fellow student in my department telling me that she likes to look at the Craig’s List “Missed Connections” page and found that a description of me had been posted there! Some guy had written a very detailed account of me at the grocery store, noting my dress, PA license plates and Fordham keychain. I could not believe that someone had actually posted an ad for me on the internet! Crazy. So, of course, I wrote to the guy and he seemed a little embarrassed, but nice enough and new to town. He told me that he thought that I was very attractive and that he appreciated the fact that I bought Activia yogurt. I told him that I appreciated a man who appreciated a woman who cares about her digestive health! The conversation pretty much ended after that.

Ego Boost #2 – September 2008

This one is even sketchier. During the second week of classes, I had a male student ask me out on a date during my office hours. He said, “I don’t know if this is appropriate, but would you like to go out on a date sometime?” I said, “I can’t, that’s against the rules. I’m not allowed to date students.” He replied, “What rules?” I said, “Sexual harassment rules. I grade you, you know.” He then asked about next semester and I said, “I’m not sure what the rules are, but that’s not the point.” He seemed embarrassed and left quickly. He came back the next day to apologize. I was totally caught off guard by it and a little angry about it happening, especially when I was so new to teaching. How does this awkward male interest stuff always happen to me?

Ego Boost #3 – October 2008

Now this one is by far the sketchiest experience that I have ever had! I was in the parking garage after a day of teaching and I admit that I looked pretty cute. I had a little polka dot skirt on and black heels, and as I was getting into my car, I noticed a man across the way getting into his. I drove down several floors of the parking garage and he was right  behind me in his car. When I got to the exit to swipe my parking pass, he began behaving erratically, pulling up beside me, flashing his lights. I looked over at him, concerned, thinking that maybe something was wrong with my car. He gestured at me in a signal of “never mind” so I pulled out and started driving down the street. He followed. I made two turns and he was still following me. I am driving across town toward my apartment and he is still behind me. Really close behind me. I start feeling really creeped out by this situation and am becoming more convinced that he is purposely trailing me. We finally get across town and when I stop at a red light, he pulls up in the lane beside me and tells me to roll down my window. He first asks me if I am a graduate student and I said yes. He said that he thought so because of my parking pass. He then explains that he is also a graduate student, new in town and has had a hard time meeting people. He says, “I’d love to take you out for dinner sometime. Can I have your number?” Mind you, we are sitting in traffic and he’s yelling at me out of his driver’s side window through my passenger side window. He starts grabbing around his car for a piece of paper. I am completely shocked and flabbergasted. I say, “No, I don’t think so…” To which he responds, “Too weird, right?” I say yes and he says, “Well, I had to try. I think you’re gorgeous!” And then the light turned green and I drove away.

I mean, seriously? Seriously! I cannot even make this shit up.

So after this series of outrageous male overtures, did my ego swell to gigantic proportions?

No.

Honestly, I think those types of things are funny, but I regard them with a sense of disbelief. On the one hand, it is flattering that men see me around and will do crazy, inappropriate things in order to try to date me. But on the other hand, it doesn’t mean anything. So what? I attract creepers. It’s awkward and puts me no closer to what I really want. So, in terms of my ego, it didn’t do much because it’s not satisfying to get that kind of attention. They have no idea who I am and are clearly basing their interest solely on my appearance which I wouldn’t even rank in the top five of what makes me awesome.

Ok, so the ego boost situations were very superficial which makes the ego bust situation all the more obnoxious.

Ego Bust – November 2008

I actually tried to date someone who used to read my blog. Yes, once again, only in the world of Biscotti do these situations arise. I thought that this was the perfect solution to my dating woes. Here was someone who had never met me in person but magically had all of this extensive knowledge of the inner workings of my life and mind. My take on it was that after two years’ worth of blog posts, he had to at least know what he was getting himself into! Bless his heart. I thought, how refreshing this will be. I won’t have to explain myself. He’ll get me. If he was a fan of my blog and already knew how insightful, intelligent, witty, neurotic, insecure, and fatalistic I could be, then we would already be so far ahead of the game. I had very high expectations, to say the least.

As it turns out, it was an awful idea. The dates were awkward, the chemistry null, and I found out that maybe I am not Biscotti, after all. In the flesh, I think I came on too strong because I thought that he already knew, liked, and accepted me, but, in fact, he did not and rejected  my ass in a fairly swift and direct way. Blogs are great for many things; finding a soulmate is not one of them.

All of these experiences made me realize the difference between distortions of me (based on looks, blogs) and the “real” me in interactions with men. It has been a good learning experience to navigate through inauthentic connections and I am so much happier now that I know what I want.

While I Was Gone

Since I last blogged, I…

1.  Received my Masters degree

2.  Became the instructor for a class of 70 undergraduates

3. Traveled to Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Egypt.

4.  Attended the Inauguration of Barack Obama!!!

5.  Stopped running, almost completely.

I was so busy with classes and teaching for the first time that I barely had a social life or time to miss blogging. However, there were a few blog-worthy, “Oh-my-God, this could only happen to me” type moments that made me wish that I still had my outlet as Biscotti. In the next couple posts, I will share some of them with you.

Staging a Comeback

After 7 months away from the blogosphere, I am ready to dip my cyber-toe back in the virtual waters. I was thinking about starting to blog again in the summer, but why wait? I am ready!

I have made a few changes in the interest of privacy. I’m going to try to maintain some level of anonymity despite keeping the same blog address. I figure that my  hiatus has caused some lurkers who know me to delete me from their bookmarks and blog feeds, but if not, that is fine, too. I don’t plan on writing anything more scandalous than I had previously. I also took down pictures and tried to remove as many identifying features from previous posts as I could find. This was an imperfect exercise, so I am going to blog with the knowledge that some people will know who I am. The thing that drove me away from blogging in the first place was that intermediate group of people – those who are not my friends nor complete strangers, but rather people who somewhat know me. I was always worried about who they were and what THEY would think about my blog posts.

Oh, well, blogging is in the public domain. If I didn’t want people -anyone!- to be able to read it, I would just make a Biscotti e-mail listserv….and after pitching it to a focus group, I found out that pretty much everyone thinks that is the lamest idea ever.

So here I am, blogging at  my own risk, once again!