rhubarb

I've always wanted to have my dreams psycho-analysed. I watched a great episode of Frasier, where Frasier has a recurring dream about hooking up with Gil Chesterton, the food critic, in a seedy motel room. Niles and Frasier spend the whole episode trying to come up with different psychological explanations for what the dream means. Eventually they go Freudian and decide that it was a dream about their mother. Then Frasier goes to sleep and dreams about hooking up with Freud in a seedy hotel room. Niiiiice.

As far as freaky dreams go, I've had some stonkers myself. Spend more than about an hour with me and you'll realise this. There was the time that I had a series of dreams over the course of about a week in which no less than 6 of my friends died in lifts. Then there was the dream where I baked Robbie into a giant cake. Once I dreamt about two boys dying in a house fire and switched on the news to find it had happened.

Like I say, I'd love to have them analysed one day because, hell, who wouldn't?

I think I'd get them to start with this:

I'm at a party with Robbie from church, my old drama teacher Tom, and most of my friends and family. Robbie, Tom and I are standing on a glass coffee table holding an enormous stick of rhubarb. It's transparent and slightly blue in colour but it's rhubarb nonetheless. Well, the rest of the party are crowded round us, kind of like when someone hands you a massive glass of beer and everyone chants CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG except they're shouting EAT EAT EAT EAT.

So we eat. And as soon as we start eating, we realise that this rhubarb is in fact hollowed out and full of custard. Suddenly, it becomes a race and we're tearing at the rhubarb with our teeth, trying desperately to guzzle as much custard as we can before it's all gone. The crowd are going mental, stamping their feet and cheering as we stand victorious, middle fingers aloft, custard streaming down our faces.

I remembered this dream today when I was standing in Shakeaway with Steph and Emma, and decided to have a rhubarb and custard milkshake. Wasn't spectacular, but the novelty made it taste so much better.

Rhubarb is what they tell you to say on stage when you're adlibbing conversation in the background of a scene and can't remember what to say. If one or two people do it, it's ok, but what you tend to get is a stage full of people saying the word rhubarb over and over again until it loses meaning.

Don't you hate it when that happens? Whaddaya know, 'rhubarb' doesn't sound like a real word anymore.

*****

I'ts been one of those days where I've had a lot of thoughts that meant something, but the thing I'm going to remember about today is rhubarb and custard. So I don't forget, I want to say what else I thought about today.

I thought that I don't like the way I blog. There's a reason why I haven't given the address of this site out to all my friends, most of them don't know about it. I don't know what that reason is, but I do know that what I say on here is not what I say in real life. I don't know if the two could be reconciled, I don't know if I've said too much on here for that.

I realised something about myself: I can't allow myself to have a thought that isn't recorded. In order for a thought to be perfect, I have to write it down. The same with prayers. I went to the Boiler Room today and thought, now why the hell does God need to read my prayers off a piece of paper? Answer - he doesn't. So why the hell are all my prayers on pieces of paper? Answer - because I'm better at pretty words than I am at talking to God.

I thought about growing up. About the bit in Corinthians that says, "when I was a child, I acted like a child, now I am a man I will put foolish things aside" (or words to that effect). I also thought about how 'abba' basically means 'daddy', and decided that, even though I'm not a little girl anymore, that's a nice reminder that we should always be children in the Lord.

I thought about boys, because I always do. I thought about plays, because Steph has to read three plays from this massive long list and I went through and picked out the ones I liked. I thought about drama school and the fact that I'm not going to go there.

I thought a lot about being a pilgrim.

I thought a lot about rhubarb.