Waking Up Is Hard to Do.

I dreamt about the boy of my dreams last night.



We were in high school or at least back in that town, in my old neighborhood when a lot of the houses were still dirt plots.

We were our actual ages though, 34 and thirty-something. I had just received an awful grade on a test at school. The lecture hall was enormous and unfamiliar but P---- and M--- were there and a few other people I knew.

One girl had actually gone to Klein. Alexis something or other. She had a face full of freckles and a mouth shining with braces. Her test score was quite high. I was peeved that a high school kid had done better than me.

But all negativity drains away as my dream guy comes up behind me. He says he’s ready to meet my family and see my house. He’s chewing minty gum. His intoxicating breath permeates the air as he hugs me.

I have a car but he insists on riding a bike. Am I sure this isn’t Portland? It transitions into the Northwest, mentally anyway. In dreamland actuality we are still in the same neighborhood now both on bikes riding past the dirt plots of the newest Terranova West development.




We joke about all the potheads in Portland. Proudly, he shows me the new joint in his shirt pocket. I smile at him, completely enamored, and confess that today just might be the day that I try it again. Those other three times in college didn’t really count.

Besides, the fact that we were together meant that I could do just about anything and get away with it. Oh how he beamed at this remark. That beautiful face.

He has this crazy semi-Mohawk haircut. He seems to have lost some weight since we last met. When did we ever actually meet before this?

The house, as is typical in all of my dreams, is a mansion.



A true Texas sized beast of a place with amazing rooms for each of us kids and plenty of guests. Mom cooks chicken parmigiana in the kitchen. She seems almost too embarrassed to look my dream guy in the eye but manages to pinch his cheek.



She thinks he’s famous. Maybe she’s right.

The two of us run up the stairs. I have a tremendous urge to kiss him but have to wait until I’m safe in my room. Am I still 34 at this point?

I show him my sister’s room, 400 square feet of highly polished furniture. Nothing about the décor would have me believe it belonged to Colleen. This must have been her space at some point but mom has converted it into a guest room with decorative rugs and plastic plants.

Now he’s got his arms around my waist, anxious for that kiss as well.We enter my room and look around in awe. This is no simple bedroom. It’s a warehouse I explain. There are rows of chairs, tables, ceramic pots and flowers. The walls are lined with huge pieces of artwork. My busy staff runs around trying to arrange the stage for our next charity auction.

Have I suddenly turned into a thirty-something successful woman?

Now that is indeed a dream.

My alarm took it all away at 7 a.m.




Illustrators: Unknown, Edward Gorey, Gyo Fujikawa, Ve Elizabeth Cadie, Jacqueline Chwast, Gyo Fujikawa (again!)

Grimm and Gorey

Those of us lucky enough to have been born in the late 1970s might remember a little gem of a show called Faerie Tale Theatre. It began in 1982 and featured Shelley Duvall as the host and oft required fairy tale land lady in distress. Two things have brought this show into my odd little mind as of late.

This past Saturday my sister was supposed to receive The Shining via Netflix but it seems a lot of other people in the Portland area also wanted to check out the footage of Timberline Lodge seen in the film. So we have to wait to watch Ms. Duvall in the ultimate creep show.

An even better Saturday occurrence was a random stop at Goodwill out in Tigard. While looking through the children’s book the title Rumpelstiltskin popped out from the typical smattering of stories about counting your fingers and toes.

Before I even pulled the book off the shelf my mind went directly to Shelley Duvall as the Miller’s Daughter and the title roll being played by Hervé Villechaize (in a roll showing he could do much more than point up at the sky and yell about planes).

I forgot all about that as soon as I looked at the book's cover or should I say it’s extremely fantastic – in fine condition – dust jacket. Have a look:

My readers should know by now how much I adore Edward Gorey. He illustrated this version of the Grimm Brother’s Tale retold by Edith Tarcov, published by Four Winds Press and published in 1974. The copyright is 1973 (Scholastic published a soft cover version before this one).



At Oldimprints we have a copy of Goreyography by Henry Toledano. It is an excellent resource for identifying just how awesome or not your particular Edward Gorey book is. My Rumpelstiltskin is the first edition published by Four Winds Press which is thrilling for me as a collector.

I might just have to see if I can put Faerie Tale Theatre in my Netflix queue.