LJ: I don't remember these often

What an incredibly long and complex dream I just had.

It was a very long story. I was me in some other life. I was working as a tech or a manager at a large multi-purpose facility somewhere on a college campus. And I ended up doing something (vagueries mean I can't remember the detail anymore most of the time) that slighted someone who looked not unlike Joy Patterson in a major way. I don't remember how, just that at the time, I did it without much regard, but it turned into a major fiasco that I didn't even realize until later in the day. The time period was about 14 hours for the dream.

Anyway, I did this thing that really hurt Joy (not the Joy that I went to school with, I'm just calling her that), didn't realize the gravity of what I did. I went about my day. Then later in the day, as I was working some folks started coming up to me and berating me for it. It was an extraordinarily realistic dream. I remember myself walking up a ramp from a backstage or dock area to a hallway. No purpose to it except that it was me walking. I had tools on me, stage tools. There was a large central room that had a warehouse feel to it, and led to the backstage area, the offices and the dressing rooms. This room had a staircase in the middle of it, but I'm not sure I know where the stairs went. In one of the hallways in an area of the building away from the theater traffic were a series of rooms along the left side of the hallway, and in one of the rooms a church met, and there was some service or something going on in there at the time I walked passed. I may have walked into the church. I may have even known some of the people in it in a very casual way, I don't know.

So, this Joy person left, though I hadn't really paid attention to it. She and I had a professional relationship, but nothing else. I didn't regard her one way or the other, and I didn't initially realize I'd done anything that wrong. Then I realized, or maybe someone told me, that the incident had already reached the highest levels of the school? I think it may have been one of Joy's catty bitch friends? I didn't hang around there long? I had stuff I needed to get done. I remember that all of this was as a major show coming up in a couple of weeks, and I was methodically working through my duties to make sure that the space would be ready. When I started realizing (as more and more people were talking about it) that I'd done something majorly bad (like, in the heat of anger, I'd said something to Joy about being incompetent because something got screwed up, and it was taken as really mean), I started getting really worried. What I'd been accused of (and if you looked at the cold facts, without taking intent into it, what I'd done) was serious enough to have me expelled from the school. Michelle was there, and I talked to her briefly as we were both sitting in the auditorium and she dismissed the incident and my fears about having to leave. I saw Michelle again some time later in the evening, and she was in one of those rooms like the church, except this was one on the theater side, and had a stage at one end, and folding chairs set out on the beige carpet (great chairs with red cushions or seats). She was sitting in the first or second row, on the left end of the aisle (the side nearest the door? as you walked in the room, the stage was to the left? then when you reorient yourself to face the stage (turn 90 degrees left) she was sitting 1st or 2nd row house left). There was some rehearsal going on for a weird show? I walked in on rehearsal quietly? there was some contortionist on stage or something. The director was flanked by a couple of people, and was sitting about 3/4 of the way back, maybe 20-25 rows, and more toward the right side of the house. I walked into the aisle behind Michelle, realized that it would have been rude to try to have any sort of conversation with her right there, and just squeezed her shoulder. When I walked in, she was sitting about four seats in, but slid to the left to the aisle when I squeezed her shoulder, and made motions that her neck was stiff, so I rubbed it briefly. Then I left that room. Before I walked in there, I had a cell phone, and I'd been walking around looking for her. I guess by that point I'd pretty much decided that I was going to be asked to leave that night, so I was walking around finishing things up and saying goodbyes to some folks I needed to say goodbye to. There weren't many, and only two that I really cared about. I didn't have any notion one way or the other about how the administration was going to act, but it didn't look good from my perspective because based simply on the facts I couldn't deny the charges. So I was standing in a hallway trying to figure out where Michelle was, plucked my cell phone from my belt and started to call her, then I realized that she was probably in rehearsal in a room about 20 feet around a corner behind me. That's when I walked in (the door was propped open) and saw the contortionist, and then Michelle.

I also remember really wanting to say goodbye to Karen Books. I don't know anyone named Karen Books. In this dream-world. Karen was a dancer or fitness instructor of some sort. She was kind of skinny, certainly fit, and really short. I don't remember her face except that she had thin lips and kind of a wide nose, and short blond hair (kind of like Julie Moreland's hair from the photos I have of her, but blond. I had a crush on Karen and really liked her a lot? we'd worked together quite a lot? but I don't know that the feeling was reciprocated, or if it was it was to a lesser degree. I finally caught up to her as she was leaving for the day. She was coming out of the dressing room area carrying a largish athletic bag, and had stopped momentarily in that large central room before heading out to the parking lot. (Facing the steps in the center of the large central room, the dressing rooms were off to the left and a bit behind me, and if you think of the room as a clock, it would be easier to describe. The steps were at the center, and if you stood and faced the steps as they went up, you'd be facing 12:00. The dressing room entrance (or at least the hallway to get to them) was at 7:00, and the alcove that lead to the exit to the parking lot was at 4:30. I saw her walking briskly toward the exit, then she stopped to get keys out of her bag or something. I caught up with her (I'd been standing near 6:00), and said something to her. I don't remember what was said, but it was brief, and that was about when the dream ended.

It's remarkable because it's one of those involved dreams I have only once in a great while, like on the order of once a year or so.