males & race...ready set go!

I took a nap this afternoon. Before I fell asleep, I was thinking about ice skating, cold climates, and the effects of cold climate on a person and how that relates to New England extremities of weather. How does one change when regularly exposed to an icy climate? Do we become sluggish in our ways when the sun is bright and the weather warm year round? Do we become busier, motivated, pushed when our bodies have to change with the seasons, when our hot, sunny time and our cold, snowy time are limited and moving? Thinking of these things, I somehow fell asleep, from what I recall. And this is what I dreamt...

I'm with Mr. H (person from waking life that I dated years ago), hanging out at his totally fictitious house, and thinking with wonder as I stare at characteristic things in the house, "We mesh so easily...I could totally live this life..." But knowing that I had previous to this dream moment been against getting back together with him, I pause in confusion at the realization of this contradictory harmonious stance. I try to make sense of what I feel, and then remember...that even though the moment is harmonious and the picture of this life that I'm looking at looks nice, I'm forgetting to see the depth to the connection between us--all the effort and the other things that I didn't care for that I already experienced in the past.

I have to leave. There are acquaintances from Berklee (my waking life school) in this house-ish building that I'm in, who are sort of in the background. I'm just trying to get the hell out of the house-ish building, which is kinda fancy nice, but somehow a segue from Mr. H's outdoorsy/nature/woodsy type of house. But before I can get out, I have to change my clothes for some reason, which I'm attempting to do in a hurry in this one bedroom-like room with these huge, tall windows opening to like a street. I am changing in a hurry without concern for anything else going on around me, until I become self-conscious for a millisecond, deciding to pull the window curtains closed. But since they are huge, I only manage to draw one of the curtains partially closed with my hasty movement. Eventually I hurry out of the building onto the streets, and while the windows from inside had showed daylight outside, stepping outside the city was now dark night.

I'm walking hurriedly down a hill-ish street, and there are other people walking along the street, as well, including a couple. One of them says to the other with a harassing tone, "Ask her if she's from Chinatown!" I feel offended that because these "white" people see an "Asian" person they automatically think I live and belong in some bubble Asian neighborhood (I respect Chinatown, but the suggestion that all Asian people would live there or belong there because they don't belong outside or elsewhere is...well, messed up). I continue to walk past in now offense-fueled speed. Somehow I make my destination at some restaurant, where I'm a waitress (with other Asian American staff?). There is this table with a (non-Asian Am) family sitting down. They are waiting for service, and the father figure at the table has a rough personality and seems aggressive. He is angry for waiting and is semi-trying to get the attention of the staff by shaking his fist or knuckles in a "Come here"-demanding sort of way. I walk to his table, knowing that a good waitress provides efficient service and that I have not done a great job by keeping them waiting, and confront the father/husband figure saying, "I know my job is to serve you...But I'm a HUMAN BEING. WE'RE HUMAN BEINGS!" He orders something odd like a dish of garlic. I go back to the kitchen to get it, but before reaching the fridge my brother E says, "That was kinda harsh, wasn't it?" And I justify either aloud or in my head (I forget which) that it wasn't, because he was being offensive--he wasn't just waiving a waiter over for service, he was shaking his fist in a threatening and demanding manner. As I'm retrieving the man's request in the kitchen, I feel a little paranoid, like the joke is on me. Why am I getting this __blankity blank request__? Do they sincerely want it or is that guy just giving me a hard time? I start to wonder whether I've made a situation unnecessarily worse than it was to begin with, though I had justified my response a second ago.

Suddenly I'm in a house again, and the man who I served is responsible for paying my income and giving me a pair of black dress shoes, and providing other generous gifts to me. I'm finding this out as news. I start to think it's wrong to take gifts from someone who treated me so offensively...and start to think about where my money is coming from and what I'm buying and using the money with...It doesn't feel right to have my lifestyle or life supported by his money.