I'm riding in the back seat of my parents' car to my grandmother's house on a Friday. I realise I don't have my keys-- I think maybe I left them at Grandma's last time I was there. I want to make sure I have or can get my keys because I want to have the option to be able to leave without my parents. I ask what time are we leaving tomorrow and my mother says probably by noon. I'm glad we are leaving so early and not spending all of Saturday at Grandma's house.
When we arrive, Grandma is watching a large flat-screen TV. [Her house looks a lot more like my parents' house does than like my grandmother's house did. And in fact, Grandma herself doesn't really look like my actual grandmother did.] It looks like maybe a soap opera is on-- something with a beautiful blonde woman on the screen. I sit on the couch to Grandma's right. I think my mother or father might be on her left. My mother asks my grandmother how she likes it. I think she is referring to a DVD player I see in the entertainment setup, but then I realise she is asking how Grandma likes the television. Grandma says something like she likes it ok. As we watch the TV, large (like an inch or two across) hexagonal outlines start to appear in the picture. Within many of the hexagonal cells the TV image is drastically pixelated. I say the pixels in her screen are so big, she needs a better definition TV. Then a man on the television, like a game show host or morning magazine host, even mentions how oversize the pixels on this television are, and some white lines (like the ones that sometimes illustrate a football play) appear on the screen circling some of the pixels. Grandma jokes to me something like, "Maybe only you and the whole world noticed it." Then her eyelids flutter quickly (I notice her lashes seem quite long), her eyes roll back in her head, and she dies. She falls backward onto whomever is on the left side of the couch. I think about an article I read recently that talked about how death used to be handled in the home. When I look up, my grandmother's corpse is sitting upright in a chair instead of on the couch. I think that now my mother will prepare my grandmother's body for a wake we will have here at the house. The corpse says something about [in a home wake situation] there is just a general smell that you can't really tell where it's coming from [meaning the dead body smell is sort of diffuse and tolerable] as she slides down the chair onto the floor.
I am in some kind of cafe/nightclub. There is this really hot girl there. I hear or somehow know that she is a model from Russia. She is the DJ at this club. I see she is hanging on the wall a few feet above the floor, attached to the wall at her wrists and ankles. [In the dream, this doesn't seem any stranger than, say, go-go dancers in cages seem in waking life.] She is wearing an open-weave metal bustier, its composition is like that of a rigid screen. A genial older lady with short red hair passes by me and I ask her "Who's singing that?" referring to the song currently playing in the club. She tells me it's Lou Reed. "Oh, I thought it was Lou Reed," I say. "I just thought like, maybe you only play new songs here."
There are several men working out on balcony of D's and my apartment. They are working with cement and jackhammers as if it were a construction site. My boss S goes out to help them. There are two heater/air conditioning units in the apartment, one on each side of the balcony door [not really]. The apartment is already too warm, and the unit on the right is blowing hot air. I try switching it off, but nothing happens. I have to hold the small "reset" button for several seconds before it shuts off. The heater/air conditioners are acting strangely because of the work being done. The unit on the left is blowing cold air, which also is not needed, so after trying the off button on that one also unsuccessfully, I shut it off by holding the reset button.
On my way back to the couch from the air conditioner, I lift my shirt up to adjust my pants. I think I am wearing a leopard-print bra. When I get to the couch, I see D's high school friend K is on the couch, with two very large pillows completely covering his upper body and face. He had put the pillows up as a screen to my inadvertent display. I am thinking something to say, like "Sorry, I forget I can't disrobe when I'm not alone in the house," but I don't think I finish forming my reply or actually speak it. [At this moment I am woken by the alarm.]
*****
The clearest meaning in this jumbled bunch of dreams is S's joining the workmen on the balcony. I feel that S tends to butt into his subordinates' work; any time someone is working on a critical piece of a project, S comes over to his desk and personally "helps" with the task (or "supervises" it or whatever). In the dream, S clearly felt that whatever work was being done on my balcony could not be completed properly by the construction crew on their own; he had to go out and help them to be sure. This dream could double as a bit of self-criticism as well. I often doubt the ability of others to complete tasks to my personal standards. For instance, I loathe delegating the laundry to D because he does not do it exactly the same way I do; rather than permit D to help with this household task, I usually prefer just to do it myself.
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