Hobbit Hill, Macy Gray, and Driver's Ed.

I have several things to report today, as I have been neglecting my blogging duties for over a week now. I'll start with the first dream, entitled "Hobbit Hill" for reasons on which I'll elaborate momentarily. In any case, the dream didn't start on Hobbit Hill; my dad, my mom, Wesley, Gary (my mom's roommate), and I were driving through rolling hills in the countryside. It was nearing nightfall, and my dad, driving, called back to us, "We're almost there." As the sun set behind the furthest hill, retracting its red tendrils from the translucent stars, we heard the grumble of gravel beneath the tires, indicating that we had pulled into a driveway. There, before us, was Heather's parents' house (which is in Colorado). As awkward as this would be in real life (given the fact that Heather and my dad separated a while back and that she never got to know my mom that well), it ran very smoothly in the dream. We all unloaded our suitcases from the trunk (I suppose we planned to stay for an extended period of time), trudged toward the lit windows of the house, and were accepted warmly inside by Heather's parents, who were happy to see all of us. After we set our things down in the corner of an upstairs bedroom, we congregated downstairs in front of the television, where we were all chatting pleasantly about the drive and a recent blizzard which had inundated Colorado with snow. This went on for a while, until we heard a loud knocking on the door; when Mrs. Gosnell (Heather's mom) opened the door, we could see her daughter's face in the space produced between door and wall. Heather came inside and began to have a serious-sounding discussion with my father, who was sitting on the couch and looking up sheepishly every now and then. Meanwhile, my mom, Wesley, Gary, and I escaped through the back door and into the car, leaving my dad to face whatever doom awaited. We drove back through the rolling hills, though it was now early in the day and the sun bounced jovially between the hills and reflected itself in streams running along the road. We saw an exceptionally large hill looming in the distance, on which was constructed a building that looked remarkably like Reynolds, my high school. My mom pulled the car into a little gravelly parking lot at the base of the hill, looking up at the building curiously. A sign was posted nearby, with an arrow pointing up to the building, which read "Youth Symphony Auditions: Go to Auditorium." I happened to have the trumpet in the back seat with me, and so I decided, "Why not audition?" given the fact that even if I didn't make it, I might run into Jeremy or Anita, as they regularly audition for these things due to their "ninja" musical abilities. My mom said that she'd park the car and wait at the bottom of the hill until my audition was finished, so I left the car and began the steep climb to the peak of the hill. I entered the building through the front door, and was surprised to find that the interior of the building was very similar to the layout of Brunson Elementary's interior, with a long hallway branching off in rooms on either side. I walked across the imitation-marble floor, turning left into the auditorium, where a group of kids around my age sat in a group in the middle of the floor, clutching their instruments. The weirdest thing was the silence; no one was practicing while they waited for their name to be called. I sat down cautiously, slightly away from the group. A huddle of adults stood at the front of the room, speaking quietly together; when they broke away, I waved at a man whom I recognized to be the director of the Youth Symphony. He walked over, and I asked him how long it would be until the auditions were over.
"What's your last name?" he asked, pulling out a clipboard from the inside of his jacket.
"Witt." I told him, and he wrote it at the bottom of the list. Looking up, he replied, "It could be about half an hour or longer; we're still waiting for a few of the judges to arrive."
"Oh," I said, "then I'll just go and tell my mom how long it'll be." With a wave, he dismissed me and I left the room clutching the handle of the trumpet, nearly running smack into the director of the legit Symphony, who was talking feverishly into a cell phone. I scooted out of the way as he entered the room, did a minor double-take, and exited the building once more. I tottered down the steep hill (it was my gesticulating, at this point in the story as I related it to my father, that caused him to christen this hill "Hobbit Hill," because he seemed to think that my poor visual representation of tottering down a hill was very hobbit-like) to where the car was parked at the base. My mom rolled down her window and I informed her that the audition would probably take half an hour or more, and that it would probably be best for her to go and rescue my dad and buy him some lunch before coming back to pick me up. She agreed, and drove off in another rumble of gravel. As I turned to climb back up the hill, I saw more Symphony members clambering up from all sides; inferring that the judges had finally arrived, I dashed up the steep, laborious slope, re-entered the building, and sat cross-legged with all of the other conversing students. Ms. Rheder was there, and she and the Youth Symphony director continued to pace nervously at the front of the room, while the legit Symphony director paced in the hallway outside the door, his cell phone like an extension of his ear. Students were called one-by-one out of the room for their audition. I was eventually called in for mine, which was supervised by Ms. Rheder and the two respective symphony directors. There was a montage, and then I was tottering back down Hobbit Hill with no recollection of my audition at all, except for the fact that I was told afterwards to report back to the auditorium the next day to find out if I made the Youth Symphony. My mom was already parked at the bottom of the hill, and my dad exited the car to help me load the trumpet in the trunk. Shortly after here I woke up as I was straining to remember my audition.
I had the next dream at my friend Shannon's house. I've forgotten a large chunk of it, but the setting of the part that I remember was a Kohl's or a Marshall's clothing store. My mom, Wesley, Gary, and I were wandering down the main aisle of the store, looking at the clothing racks on either side of the aisle for potential purchases. Suddenly, over the radio came the opening chords of a Macy Gray song that I now know to be called "I Try." Let me take a moment to explain that, though until a few days ago I didn't know the name of any Macy Gray song (I'd still heard them and heard of Macy Gray), the sound of her music has always been like comfort food to me for some reason. I suppose it's probably because when I was around 5 or 6, the radio stations at little stores like Marshall's and Kohl's would play her music a lot, and so now it has that nostalgic air about it. So, in the dream, when the song began playing, I started to groove to it a little bit, dancing in the aisle. Everyone laughed at me and my mom asked, "Are you rocking out to Macy Gray?"
I replied, "Yes. I love when they play her songs. They're just so easy to listen to!"
Gary rolled his eyes and said, "You are so white, Robyn; the whitest person I know, in fact."
This is exactly like something he would say, and so I felt a tinge of irritation as I inquired, "What about enjoying Macy Gray makes one 'white' with that negative connotation that you just applied to it?"
The argument continued from here, until the song was over and I was frustrated that I had missed the whole thing while arguing the validity of my appreciation for Macy Gray. This was the end of that dream.
Today was important for two reasons; most importantly, it was my mom's birthday, and we celebrated this by going out to Pancho Villas for lunch, where I bestowed upon her the gift of Kahlil Gibran (Tears and Laughter) and my own bilingual prose poem/poeme en prose, written after the style of a Baudelaire poeme en prose. She cried, even though I advised her in her card-type-thing not to, since it was her birthday. After lunch, she dropped me off for the second-most-important thing today: my last day of in-car driver's ed. I think, after my six hours of behind-the-wheel instruction, that I'm a fairly decent driver of an automatic. I only ran off the road once (today), and that was because I was distracted by a gigantic cemetary to the side of a road which intersects Reynolda Road near Golden India. Otherwise, I aced turning, reversing, the 3-point-turn, and even U-turns (which we also practiced today, on Silas Creek Parkway). My only other big mistake of event occured on the day when I was pulling into an aisle in a parking lot and I banged the back tire against the median curb when taking a sharp right. I didn't hurt the tire, thank goodness, but there was a loud, rather frightening noise that accompanied my error, which caused Stormy (who was doing the in-car portion with me) to gasp in the backseat. Throughout my three days of driver's ed, not only have I learned many of the crucial practical driving skills, I've also learned quite a bit about Winston-Salem as a city and Forsyth County. We drove all over the place, from Bethania to Yadkinville, covering almost all the country roads (and traffic circles) in Forsyth County. As far as traffic circles go, we ordained Stormy as the unofficial Queen of traffic circles in Forsyth County today. It just seemed that in her drives, she happened to run across them everywhere she went. I happened to know our instructor personally from a long time ago, back when my dad was a friend of his family - I suppose, like with most relationships, they just grew busy and traveled apart figuratively. But it was neat having him as an instructor, and I asked him to tell his family "Hello" from us. That is about everything interesting that has happened recently, except that my dad and I just returned from a Winston-Salem Dash game, which we lost spectacularly to the opposing team; the game was still fun, however, as we spent the night talking with Phil and Julie, who are friends of my dad from his meetings. They told us that our friendly neighborhood piano prodigy, Dr. Ruskin Cooper, is currently touring in Germany. They played a recording he had done of a Liszt piece (which was cool because I'd never heard him play Liszt before, nor have I heard much Liszt in the first place) on the way to the game in the car. I can't remember if I wrote about it on here, but I am still left flabbergasted (in a good way) by his performance at his house that we were fortunate enough to witness. He plays with passion and precision comparable to Glenn Gould (though not really comparable, since Glenn likes to play with a Baroque style and the pieces that I've heard Dr. Cooper play are Romantic). Whether or not they are comparable, they are both awesome. In any case, I shall now sign out for the night, retire to my bedroom, and read some more from the Jodi Picoult book that Ms. Jones lent me.