I love Armistead Maupin!

This is just a celebratory post to delight in the fact that Armistead Maupin has written a new book, called Michael Tolliver Lives. Rachel caught sight of it on display in the window belonging to Porter Square Books during a midnight excursion, and we both got so excited and started jumping up and down. It's narrated by Michael Tolliver, as you might imagine, and he is now 55! And that's all I will say, in case anyone wants to read it. I read it! It's lovely! :-D YAY ARMISTEAD!

Dreamtime in Examtime

First, I dreamed that I was a teenage girl in a big family with lots of aunts. I'm not sure which of these aunts if any was actually my mother. I think my parents might have been dead. But I kept being surprised at how many aunts we had, of all different ages, some with very unusual names. They were all sisters, I think, as opposed to marrying in or something. Anyway, I had this cousin, a boy my age, but he was in Charlotte's body. We might have even been performing, but it seemed much more real than that. So, this boy reminded me of Jesus, and also the narrator from The Life of Pi, he was just... wise, and kind of otherworldly and sparkling and he seemed to know everything. We went to some kind of public event and somebody there was speaking a Native American language, and he just jumped in and started speaking it too.

We were very close and always hung around together, and I was kind of crazy in love with him. And at some point for some reason things were getting more pressing... one of our aunts had died and there was a funeral, and I don't know if I thought he was going to be taken away or maybe actually harmed or what, but I decided I had to tell him how I felt. It was my suspicion that he wasn't actually blood related to us, but I cared more about that because of other people, not because I was personally terribly worried about the idea of incest. This suspicion arose out of the fact that he had been found in a field as an infant, and all of the aunts assumed he was one of theirs. (I'm sure this came from the Ramayana, in which Sita is found in a field.) But I took him aside and I told him how much I loved him, in this startlingly (to me, anyway) poetic way, and he just sort of smiled his beautiful smile, which I think I took as some kind of assent because I startled making plans for our escape together... I remember I kept going farther that I intended to, and was saying things like "when we're 40 or 50," which I was nervous about because I thought it was weird, but it felt completely instinctive because I was so passionate about him, and also so... natural, it felt so natural to be with him.

So, I don't really know what happened with that, because at some point it switched and I was more me, and Uncut Pages was putting on a show in a fitness club in Philly, except the room we were in was extremely nice and had beautiful wooden floors. And it was kind of a benefit/revue of various shows we'd done, although I think most of the stuff we were doing was not from any shows we have actually done. It had a lot of dancing in a line, sort of chorus numbers but with plot. The audience was really into it, and suddenly someone was like, "Where's Dilexi?" And we were startled and a little awkward for some reason even though Lilah and I were both there. I think this may have been because we didn't have the cape. I remember thinking that I had considered bringing the cape but then hadn't because it was too big to pack. But Lilah was wearing a shirt with fancy sleeves, and she stepped up and started playing Dilexi. And we were sort of dancing around her, and then she fell backwards behind some kind of tree or bush that was in the room (as part of the bit, I think), and she started crying like a baby... I don't mean a lot, as that phrase usually does, but I mean in the manner of a baby, with her mouth open enormously wide and stuff. And I was so impressed by what she was doing, both the acting ability and the symbolic choice I decided she was making about Dilexi's rebirth or something.

So I went over and was going to hold her head, like I would for a baby. I don't know why that was the thing to do, but she started freaking out because as Dilexi she didn't want to be touched. Anyway, the audience was really responsive, so after we asked them how many had seen Dilexi and/or were previous fans of our work. And a bunch raised their hands... It was like, 30-40% of this random group of people in the health club. I was impressed and sort of baffled, and thinking maybe we should have worked harder to perform in Philly again, because we apparently had such a fan base there.

And that's about when I woke up!

I'm Not Sure if This Dream was Sexy or Sad...

So, I dreamed that I was a male servant in this well-to-do household in some unspecified older-seeming time... I want to say maybe Victorian or just-post-Victorian, which time might also have a name, but I don't know it. I also think it's interesting that it seems like English queens are more likely to have time periods named after them than English kings. And be sort of fetishized and venerated in general. Not that kings don't/aren't, but... well, this has nothing to do with my dream.

Even though this household just seemed like an ordinary very wealthy household, as opposed to a palace or something, I called the youngest son of the family, and perhaps the older one as well, prince. I'm not sure about the older one. I also feel like this was a real title and not something I concocted out of affection, but I'm a little unclear.

You see, I was in love with the younger prince (who was of an age where this was appropriate, or at least not creepy), and I hated the older prince (huh, I guess he was a prince) because he tended to humiliate his brother and perhaps even manipulated him sexually, I'm not positive. Though I think in the dream I was sure this was going on. So I tried to do what I could to make life easier for the younger prince, and generally pined and watched him mature and kind of shake off the control of his older brother at last.

Then one day he came to my room (I think it was my room, though the bed seemed rather big and nice for a servant's bed), and he was sitting on my bed and talking to me, and I was just sort of smoldering with desire for him, and then he suddenly did initiate some kind of sexual contact. I'm not sure if he kissed me or what. It was the sort of thing where it moved so quickly from my desires to my reality in a way I didn't think was possible, so it was hard to pinpoint the initial details exactly. And he lay me down on the bed and lay over me... and this was funny, because I actually remember the part of my brain that still knew I was not a male servant about to have sex with another man trying to figure out if the exact position we were in was appropriate for sex between men. And then deciding that in any case it would be very pleasurable (as my male servant self awareness was indicating) and that we could move around later if necessary.

Anyway, that was probably more detail than you wanted, especially those of you dropping in from other countries, but we commenced this sexual relationship, and after that I was lying there next to him and he was sort of holding me from behind, and I said, "I love you, but you don't (or can't, I'm not sure which I said) love me." I remember saying this very calmly, because I guess I wanted to get it out of the way and not make a scene, and I wanted to say it myself so I didn't have to hear him saying it. And of course part of me was hoping that he would contradict me instead of agreeing, but he sort of kept me very close in his arms and put his cheek against my shoulder and nodded, so that I could feel it but not see it. And then I think we had sex again.

This relationship continued for some time, and although I thought I was happy about it, I think I was actually getting more and more upset about the not being loved thing, but I didn't want to give up sleeping with him, so I didn't know what to do. And I still had so much desire for him. But at some point when we were in bed together I just started crying, and he was upset/sympathetic in this way that reminded me that I had always been the one to take care of him emotionally, and in a sense I ended up doing that again, even though he was trying to be comforting to me. And of course the idea that he was comforting me because he couldn't love me was not pleasant, either. So at that point I think I started to get fairly depressed, because I couldn't seem to end the relationship or stop having feelings for him, but there was always the reminder of his superior status and the fact that I didn't mean to him what he meant to me, and probably never would. And I managed to go about my duties in the household normally, but fairly often when we were together I would quietly fall apart.

Wow, this dream is sounding more maudlin as I write it out... but anyway, finally, he came to tell me he was in love with someone else, who I think was also a man, like maybe some guy he was training with in the army (not sure when the army came into it) or something, and maybe also that he was going to have to get married soon. But he was very excited and happy, even though he was trying to break this to me gently, and his youthful exuberance was impossible to conceal, as well as the fact that he moved so quickly from one thing to the next. It was like he had come to thank me for being a part of his life, and his sexual development, or whatever, and move on. And this was just so horrible that I really lost it, even though I hadn't been rationally expecting anything else. But I started yelling at him, and crying, and I was really bothered at the same time by the fact that I was getting so out of control, but I was also somewhat pleased to actually confront him instead of just trying to suffer as quietly as possible under his well-intended horribleness. I think he was very surprised, and maybe started to yell back, but it was around then that I woke up.

Hmm. Now that dream just sounds bizarre, but it was very compelling at the time. I hope you enjoyed reading about it.