early morning napmare

I dreamed I became this road sign

About to set off to NYC, after a fitful sleep, a 4:19 AM waking then lapsing into one of those early morning naps.  You know, the kind when your dreams seem to float closest to the surface and are usually--or in my case, anyway--the weirdest, because you're half aware of their dream status.

It was one of those dreams that you recognize as a collage of bits of your day. The bits I recognized from yesterday:

1. A news story I heard on NPR about library closings in English villages [budget cuts] and a protesting woman observing that the village library was the only place an 82 year old local woman had the opportunity for human contact.

2. When the world "elderly" was used, I remembered those road signs--see pic above--Jamie and I laughed at so much one time when I rented a car and we drove out to the Cotswolds. I have a photo somewhere in an album of Jamie standing next one of those signs, hunched over, and thought, I must dig it out.

3. An email from my university administration about cutting health benefits of retirees.

4. A glimpse out my office window of a history prof who retired many years ago but eats lunch every day at the faculty dining room since his wife died.

The napmare: fuzzy but I was older--elderly, I'd say--and I knew this because I was wearing the kind of house dress--remember muu muus?--my granny wore. And my hands looked old. I was sitting in the faculty dining room which looked the same but not either: I can't put my finger on it. I was sitting alone. The waitress came over and asked if I knew that this dining facility was for faculty at the university. I said yes, of course. I was a retired faculty member. She looked dubious and went over to a man at a register, whispered and pointed toward me.

Then I woke up.

So I must get on the road--jsut wanted to get that on the page in hopes of getting it out of my head. Feeling unsettled about this trip but just going to push ahead anyway. Almost wish a blizzard had struck and given me no choice but to stay put. But it didn't, so I'm off.

I just packed two particularly au courant outfits, perhaps to counteract the image of myself in a muu-muu.