Okay so my strip for this week is inked and everything, but I need to add the markers and rescan that badboy. I would say this would happen after work, but tonight is the Discussion Group at my work, and I’ll be there watching the Persepolis movie for the first time and talking about how it compares with the graphic novel, whether or not burkas are flattering to a woman’s hips, etc.
I would have had everything done on time today, except I fell back asleep and had this crazy dream, not waking up until 7.30am, thus burning my drawing time. NOTE: dreams are never as interesting to anyone else as to the dreamer, I know this, BELIEVE ME. Fair warning. Okay, begin dream below:
So me and my whole family show up just before the beginning of the service at a church; it’s the church of this girl I had been seeing but am seeing no longer. In my mind I’m like, “What the dickens am I doing here in this church with my whole family?” Not in a “whoa this dream in nutty way,” but in a “if I’m trying to impress this girl this is a dumb way to do it” way.
Also I knew that it was a Charismatic church, what you might think of as a speaking-in-tongues kinda church, and my family did not know this. So I was worried they’d start freaking out if some tongue speakery broke out. Also I was wearing a suit? Somehow I was not picking up on any of the clues that this was a dream.
So we show up and the service is just about to start, and we are trying to find a place to sit. The sanctuary of the church is strange, windowless, kind of a cross between Greek Orthodox and mountain church. Everyone is sitting there chatting before the service, and no one acknowledges us. I keep trying to walk up the center of the aisle to find a church bulletin, and figure out what’s going on, but before I can get to the front I keep losing my nerve and rejoining my family.
Somewhere in here I keep getting up to change my suit pants for shorts, first camouflage shorts, then regular shorts. I think I was planning on the after-service, maybe it was hot. Then I realized I was wearing shorts in church with a suit, and had to get up and go find my suit pants again.
We finally are all seated, I’m next to my dad, and the minister starts talking about something. I zone out and start looking around to see if I can espy the girl and her family. I see one girl, just the back of her head, who I think might be her–but the longer I look the more apparent it becomes that this is just some old woman, not my friend at all.
Suddenly the minister is right in front of me, asking me why I would disrespect his church and all the people in it in this way. Whaaat?? He’s standing there over me lecturing my father and I about how wrong we are. Inside I’m livid, seething, it’s very rude what he’s doing, just a crazy thing, and I want to take my family and leave, just get up without a word and troop back out the door.
But then he turns his attention from us and to a nearby person and says, “Now tell me–what noise do you make when you talk to God?” The person makes a sound I can’t hear; I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on. He turns to the next person, maybe a woman, and asks the same question, and I hear her say something in sing-song voice, like “hoooo.” He nods, okay that’s good, then he turns to a little chubby kid and asks his question, and the kid leans in close to the minister and puts his hand by his mouth like he’s telling a secret, and the minister leans in too. The sound is something like “Puh,” like he’s pushing out a little puff of air into the minister’s face, and he stands back up waving his hand in front of his face as if the kid had bad breath. But he’s smiling.
Apparently we have been forgotten again, and the minister moves through the people doing this over and over. I realize that I’m smoking a cigarette (another clue that this is a dream–I haven’t smoked in almost 5 years). I try to play it off at first, all cool like what’s wrong with smoking in church anyway. Then I realize that my friend Holston is behind me talking to some contractor guys, so I hand the cigarette to him. He and his buddies are talking really loud; I’m embarassed again. Holston keeps smoking, blowing the smoke everywhere, no one seems to notice.
The inside of the sanctuary has changed, now it’s more open air, it feels like we’re in the mountains, like we’re far from any civilization except what’s in this church. Everything is made from thick wood beams, and there are no walls. The people in the church are getting stranger and stranger–no one seems to notice Holston talking loudly to his contractor buddies. I want to shush him but I’m embarassed and these people are giving me the creeps. At the front of the church are large wooden tables, built out of the same heavy beams as the rest of the church. At the tables there are children doing some sort of activity and laughing. The service has devolved into people chatting, and I keep trying to figure out if there was ever any service at all?
But it’s definitely the end-vibe, so my family and I get up and leave. No one in my family ever says a word, and out we go with Holston, who tells me he’s got a room nearby. I think Holston wants to party or something, so I tell my family bye and get ready to get into the car with party-Holston.
But oops I realize I forgot my suit-jacket, and head back into the church. When I get there all the people are back in their seats, just like before, and the interior has reverted to its original windowless state. For the first time people are looking at me as I retrieve my suit-jacket from the back of the pew. It is neither a friendly nor an unfriendly look. As I stand there being looked at by these creepy people, I get the idea that they had just wandered away and waited for us to leave, and then returned. This idea wakes me up.
Whoa creepy! Okay, I should have that colored strip up, hopefully before bed tonight, maybe first thing in the morning. It’s the first of a multi-parter autobio strip about girls, so don’t get your hopes up for kneeslapping humor or anything. Okay have a good Monday peeps!
