Dream of cooking course

 I was in college again. It wasn't clear why, since I am, in fact, a college graduate. I was questioning that myself, in the dram. My age in this context is undetermined: I am just myself at whatever age I am in my own mind.. One of the courses I was taking was in cooking, but involved field trips and my transportation was not guaranteed. I began to worry about my grades, but felt like I didn't need all A's during my second college career.  My vagueness in retelling this dream responds to the vagueness of the dream itself. 

Dream of a tattoo

 A grad student considering our program had a tattoo of poem on his back, that somehow another person, a young woman also applying, was responsible for. 

An Imaginary Friend

 A friend was staying at my house (my mom's house). He had gotten there a day before I did. He was a youngish or middle-aged guy who was into poetry. Nobody seemed to question his presence there: he was my friend. He had some books with him; one a translation of Robert Desnos. He read me some poems from this book and they weren't bad, though they didn't resemble actual Desnos poems at all. (Not that I know his poems well!).  

It occured to me at some point that we hadn't really hung out very much in the past, in real life, and thus our friendship was really starting then. I was on the verge once of asking him how we had met. We were going to go some event in a Barnes & Nobles later in the evening...   

When I woke up from this dream, I had no idea who this person was. The dream was very vivid and full of real-feeling details, but this person does not exist in real life. I understood this immediately upon waking up, with some wistfulness.  

When not hanging out with my imaginary friend, I was with relatives. We were talking and I realized they didn't know that Mona Jo had died (my aunt).  These relatives, though, were also composite or imaginary figures, not my actual relatives.  

Bumper sticker

 I saw a bumper sticker in my apt complex this morning:  "What would Mary Shelley do?"

and I thought

"Marry Shelley." 

6th or 7th?

 On Facebook someone was talking about completing their sixth decade. They were 69.  I didn't say anything, but you are ten when you complete your first decade, and 70 when you complete your seventh.  I am in my 7th decade now, at 64.  I really don't know how this person was 11 years off.  Perhaps it is because your 60s seem like number 6, so your 70s (your 8th decade) would begin at age 70.  

A Dream

 I was considering dating a younger Japanese American woman. (Not a real person in real life.) Then I questioned myself for being so arrogant for thinking she would want me. Why was I so confident? But really I did not mind being confident. Then I realized it would not be fair to her. Maybe she would want children? Then I woke up.  

Dream of being accused

 I was accused of murder. I was sitting on a lawn of some sort, where the trial was taking place. I had no idea whom they thought I had killed. It gradually came out that I had done so as a medical student, by operating incorrectly on a patient. I was thinking that I was not criminally culpable for this. When I woke up, I knew it was a false accusation because... I have never been a medical student.  In the dream itself, I never questioned this, though I certainly didn't feel "guilty."