Weird Dreams (and Dates)

Ok I am definitely sleeping too much, because I have had THE weirdest dreams lately.

I can understand my dreams last night, because they related very closely to a odd (but nice) date I had last night.

Quick date wrap-up.

The good: he's handsome, intelligent, cares about art, and seems overall to be very good-natured (and he's not threateningly charismatic, which is usually what I'm attracted to, but which doesn't usually make someone such a great person); his dog really liked me (and I liked it, and it wasn't my standard type, either); he's very boundary-less in terms of going for what he wants, which is excellent -- example: asking an indoor restaurant that the dog "picked" by staring at it when we walked by if, in the pouring rain, they'd extend their awning and bring a table outside for us...which they did (I like someone who indulges his own particularities, because that means he's less likely to condemn me for indulging mine, so long as our spheres of particularity do not overlap, leading to a power struggle); his terrace goes all around the entire building and is, estimating conservatively, 6 or 8 times the size of my entire apartment (hey -- at least it's only the size of his balcony I'm concerned with!).

The bad: there no evidence that he's had a successful relationship in the past (sound familiar?); he's said that he's restricted all non-essential travel since getting his dog seven years ago so that he's not left alone ("he" being the dog); his 28yo assistant (straight and with girlfriend) is now moving into a house that he owns in Brooklyn, and has power of attorney (don't ask me how that comes about on a first date!); he does not email (his assistant reads and writes all of his emails).

The odd: he has been doing extensive renovations to an apartment which I'd been hearing about since before Labor Day, which I just found out last night are actually three apartments that constitute the entire floor of a building in Greenwich Village that *get this* he's renting -- he doesn't buy, because he says it's cheaper to rent and he can just walk away from a rental and it's not his problem...this coming from a guy who has knocked down walls, totally changed the floors, is having new cabinets installed, had all the air conditioners covered in bamboo and window sills lined with marble...AND IT'S NOT EVEN HIS! He has what is probably the most important collection of Russian avant-garde art in the world (and was pleasantly surprised that I knew of some of the painters from a previous life) but wants to sell the whole thing to a Russian (or multiple Russians) in political trouble and looking for valuable art as a bargaining chip (eg: "Dear Government, I'll give this Faberge Egg to the Hermitage if you don't nationalize my oil company.") He has to bring his own salt everywhere he eats, and not because he can't request sea salt from the chef (which of course he could) but because he needs special unrefined powder sea salt. He is so deathly allergic to dogs that he cannot even get the allergy shots that would increase his tolerance because having even a small amount of hair injected into his arm could kill him; nevertheless, seven years ago, he spotted a dog from across the street that he said he instantly knew was brilliant, and went to the guy with the dog and said "tell me about this dog," and the guy told him that he found it the day before with the police taking it to the pound, and couldn't keep it because he was leaving NYC; J then told the guy that he would take the dog, and (not to his surprise) even after not letting it on any furniture, washing all the time after he touches it, and having restricted areas of the house where it can never ever go, he lost 70% of his lung capacity within a few weeks -- the solution? Steroid shots twice daily. [Note: this is why, when he invited me a Juicy MD to a concert of Phillip Glass, who I didn't know at the time is one of his best friends, in the Hamptons, he said that she wouldn't have to worry about the dog, because it's not allowed to go to the main part of the house...since he is also allergic to his own dog!]

In all, he seems like someone who has a lot of potential, but the date was really halted by these long pregnant pauses in which he'd just grin at me (or not at me), which under normal circumstances would be romantic (if a bit off-putting), but last night I learned meant: "I'm thinking about how cute the dog is right now." It was hard for us to talk about ANYTHING, because we were so focused on the dog...how smart he is (he is REALLY well-trained even though he was never actually trained at all and is a total sweetheart)...how he performs cost benefit analysis ("do I take the treat or insist we walk the direction I want to walk?")...how he takes contracts seriously ("if I take the treat then I can't trick J and make him walk my direction anyway. I have to agree to go the way he wants to go")...how he makes instant value judgments about people that J trusts, etc. It was really good for me that the dog loved me, but I feel like it was hard for me to get to know J not only because his life itself doesn't fit into the standard boxes we grab on to when we get to know someone (I mean, someone who doesn't work per se, but rather "works" at watching his investments and his art collection, and who doesn't talk much about either -- you can't ask him about his day!), but also because he just isn't that easy to talk to because we had to be so distracted by the (extremely cute) dog.

Sidenote: "our" dog started playing with another dog (kind of at my request) which is perhaps the cutest white puff of a thing I've ever seen. It was an American Eskimo. Remember that.

Ok so the dreams (is it obvious that I'm procrastinating before my Legal Methods exam in 16 hours?...I have a second date with a nice Israeli tonight, actually!). I had a REALLY restless sleep last night because I dreamt that I was at J's house, except he not only had pets (many of them -- some of them odd found-objects and other things that are NOT, in real life, pets, but had somehow come to life in the dream) but also children, and I had to sort of be tested by all of them to see how well I could handle all his pets and kids, while going from room to room in this house filled with art oddities. It was just...really odd. I'd be, like, chasing a tiny rainbow coloured crocodile with one of his ethnically-mismatched daughters (REALLY a weird dream!) and then have to stop in front of some antique mirror and, like, be amazed by it in order to be properly respectful to his space. It was VERY odd.

I just took a nap after brunch wherein I dreamed that my nieces (kind of), some of their friends (kind of), and some random people from my law school (again, they were sometimes there, sometimes not, and I don't really know most of them in real life) came to my mother's place in CA for Thanksgiving *along with* a group of traveling nuns trying to recruit the girls in the group to join the convent. I remember that our house was REALLY cluttered (eg: with glasses with formal napkins in them, unwashed, etc.) -- which is SO not how my mother has her house -- and that even though the dinner went really well, I found my mother crying in my walk-in closet, talking about what a failure it was and how she wanted everything to be perfect (ok that part could actually happen in real life lol). When I started to reassure her that everyone had a great time, she then tried to find the silver lining in the nuns, and said "well at least they make us take the girls out to see the world before they are allowed to commit themselves to the convent, unlike the ones who came to Webb [my high school]" (weird since that never happened) at which point my mother and I both put black pillow cases over our heads, folded in the back, to see what we'd look like as nuns, and then joined the rest of the party. The dream then became about how we were, like, flying the girls all over the world so that they could make an informed decision about joining a convent, and the last thing I remember, after an extremely vivid (and fun) take-off in the middle of a lightening storm (it was like blasting off in a rocket ship) was waiting in line for coffee on the plane, disappointed that they only had one little chocolate cracker thing to offer by the time they gave me my snack, and it was ruined because it had orange marmalade stuff on it.

Have to study before my date! I'm going to tell the Israeli that we have two hours for dinner and then I *have* to come back and study for my Legal Methods exam (which is just pass/fail, but still). He invited me to a gallery opening, but I'm going to be disciplined and stay home and only meet him for dinner.

VC

PS: To anyone who has doubted my ability to move-on post-Pookie, please kiss it. There's a difference between loving someone and being a fool. I love Pookie and wish that we had some involvement in each other's lives (even non-romantic) but we don't, and it's a choice he made that I'm not going to cry over or foolishly fret about. The loss may not be entirely his, but the choice was, and he's old enough that if he wants to continue to make the same mistakes that he's made throughout his life and then lie to himself about what they mean, then he should be able to do that.