Geeky in my dreams.

Last night I realized that I am boring. At least in my dreams I am boring.

Granted the dream isn't the sort of boring dream that my friend Felisa had. I'm not that much of a dullard (sorry Felisa).

Nope. I'm boring in a completely different way.

Apparently in the dream it was morning time, and I was getting out of bed. I was back in college, living in a dorm. The dorm was nothing like it the actual dorm I lived in with my freshman college roommate Andy Weinstein at Washington University in St. Louis (I use his full name in case he ever googles himself. Hi Andy!). Nope. This dorm in my dreams still had the requisite cinderblock walls painted white but there was nothing on the walls. It had bunk beds wherein I slept on the bottom bunk and my roommate in my dreams (who was not Andy Weinstein) slept on the top bunk. On top of that, in the dream there was only two thing in the dorm room other than the bunk beds, a boom box (remember those?) and cheap wooden shelves that ran from floor to ceiling.

You can see from this picture of my actual freshman dorm room (the only year I actually lived in the dorms) that my sense of decorating was to cover EVERY SINGLE INCH OF AVAILABLE WALL SPACE with stuff. Even the corners of the rooms held photographs. At one point during the school year, I believe a friend of mine walked into the room, looked around at the chaos, and stated with satisfaction "YES. This is what a college dorm room is suppose to looks like." I was pleased with that remark. Looking back, I am also pleased that my roommate was so understanding.

Do note how cool and timeless my musical taste was back then. As I have album slicks (that's the name of those square poster like items on the wall that look like album covers) of Sioxsie and the Banshees, Erasure, Electronic, My Bloody Valentine and The Pixies. Just ignore the fact that I also have The Farm's Sparticus above the Electronic slick (who's The Farm? Exactly). I believe I would still listen to all those albums right now (if I had them in a digital format on my external hard drive). I rarely listen to anything that isn't on my iTunes database nowadays.

What you can't see in the picture, of course, is the numerous Barbra Streisand album covers with a handmade poster that said "BARBRAFEST!" that I put up next to my bed claiming to be ironically funny (but not really because secretly I really liked her "Broadway Album" as I went through a brief but intense Broadway musical phase, and I did think Barbra was great in Funny Girl, just going to show that I was terrible at hiding my homosexuality...something that every single person on my Freshman floor probably could attest to).

Also note in the photo that my freshman roommate Andy Weinstein at Washington University in St. Louis is using a state-of-the-art Macintosh IIsi computer. We had people coming into our room envious and jealous of the computer.

And yes, that is a Fido Dido doll sitting on top of my boombox on the top shelf. I acquired it from someone at summer bible camp (another story for another time) and was quite pleased with it. I wonder whatever happened to it? Probably in my parent's basement. Everything is in my parent's basement.

But I digress. In the dream, I had none of these decorations. Stark blank white walls, and one single boom box. And rows and rows of bookshelves. And on these bookshelves I had rows and rows of comic books.

Yes. In my dreams I am geekier than I am in real life. Is that possible? I don't know. Quite possibly. I don't really collect comics anymore.

So in the dream, I had just woken up from a night's sleep and the first thing I decided I needed to do was to organize my comic book collection. I don't remember how I had them organized, but I had decided (in my dreams) that it was all wrong. And so I started to sort through them all, and started to re-bag them. First you take them out of the original comic book plastic bag and look to see if any of the bags were starting to yellow. A lot of the bags weren't the acid free mylar, but the cheap polypropylene bags that weren't always the most archival. If they were yellowing, I'd throw them away and put them in a new bag, along with a new stiff backing board to keep the comic from bending.

It seemed like tedious work, so I decided to put on some music to help pass the time and to help wake me up. My musical selection: Belinda Carlisle.

Now it's true, Belinda is no Siouxsie Sioux. She is no Johnny Marr, nor is she a Kim Deal and she is definitely no Kevin Shields. Okay, maybe she's closer to Andy Bell. But let's face facts. Belinda started out with The Go-Go's, a band that had it's roots in the LA punk scene (Johnny are you Queer?). And so I say with pride that I chose Belinda Carlisle in my dream, to organize my comic books.

As I was bopping away to Heaven is a Place on Earth, my roommate (not Andy Weinstein from Washington University in St. Louis) pops his head up from the top bunk and asks me... "Are we listening to.... Belinda Carlisle?"

Why yes, we are! It turns out my college roommate is my friend Glenn Gortney! One of the BIGGEST fans of THE GO-GO's that I know! He's hung out with Jane Wiedlin (my person favorite GO-GO) as well as Charlotte Caffey. In fact, he's done GO-GO's pilgrimages with his friend Kim Brisack, traveling up and down the west coast following them around to venues and shows all over the place!

So Glenn pops his head up, asks me about the musical selection and then proceeds to tell me that if I REALLY want to listen to some Belinda Carlisle, all I have to do is ask him, and he'll make me a mix tape with all the REALLY cool Belinda songs on it. Because apparently he has the completely discography, including those really rare singles that you can only get on import from Japan and Belgium and such.

I'm enthusiastic. So I tell him YES! Make me a mix tape. I can't wait! I'm so glad we're roommates!

And then I wake up. AJ abruptly asks me if I have a therapy appointment this morning. "Ummm. Yes." - though it comes out of my mouth "urrmmmm..yeeessthh." Well your alarm is set but not turned on. Don't worry though. It's only 15 minutes after the alarm was set to go off.

I get out of bed grudgingly. In the shower, I wonder...is this the sort of dream that a person brings up to their therapist? And what would he say in response?

"Well I had this dream last night. I was organizing my comic books and listening to Belinda Carlisle in my college dorm. My roommate offered to make me a mix tape of rare Belinda Carlisle tracks."

"Hmmm.... Interesting.... I would say the comic books represent sexual frustration as it is obvious that you are not having any sex if all you want to do is organize comic books."

or.

"Hmmm... Interesting... Perhaps the Belinda Carlisle music represents your mom, and your friend who is offering to make a mix tape, is telling you that there is more to your mom than just what you and everyone else knows about. The fact that he wants to make you a mix tape of rare Belinda Carlisle music is his attempt to show you that you mom has hidden facets of her life that you are not aware of."

Though more likely than that, my therapist would just say "Hmmm. How very interesting. It seems that you. are. very boring. and extremely geeky. Even in your dreams. You are complete geek. With very common taste in music."

Ultimately, I decided to talk about something else in this morning's session.