Making spirits bright.

Here's how things feel today:


So, I'm grateful for this


and this


Yes, it's the dragon, in a wreath (a far less subversive holiday combination, I might add, than the one a particular Saturday night show unleashed on the world a week ago...).

***

So, to elaborate. On my way to a breakfast this morning, I remembered what had been going on in my sleeping head only a few hours earlier.

In my dream, I was teaching a class that had a number of prospective student visitors. The visitors overwhelmed my regular students, in fact. Everyone was keyed up and not so vaguely uncontrollable. I began trying to teach them all about deep breathing exercises and how useful they are for calming oneself down. My students were starting to be contaminated by the visitors; everyone was getting more and more unruly and overstressed. I grew more and more agitated myself, until I finally started threatening to take down their names and alert the admissions office about their disruptive behavior. Some yelling was involved.

What disturbed me most, when it returned to me as I scudded over the soft hills, was realizing that I'd yelled at students--even if they were someone else's immaturely behaved high school students, even if they were only in a dream--in the process of trying to teach them relaxation techniques. Good thing it's nearly time for a break. Soon comes the sleep. Not to mention the deep breathing.

And the self-berating? That stays here when I drive away tomorrow. I've got enough other baggage (and two soon-to-be-fresh soon-to-be-pies) to carry.