My Evening with Liev Schreiber

I have awesome dreams. They are vivid, life-like, almost always pleasant as if, upon sleeping, I've teleported to a slightly more strange reality than the one I currently live in. It's nearly like my current life, but leans slightly to one side like a carnival funhouse (except without the creepy clowns).

One of the peculiarities of my dream life is that I frequently dream of celebrities. I am not enamored with Celebrityhood. I'm not a big follower of pop-culture. For more than a decade I didn't even own a television. And yet, my subconscious makes good use of these convenient icons to entertain me and process the days events all in one amusing little package.

My husband refers to these dreams as "Celebrities on Parade."  My brain doesn't have a preference about what celebrity it picks and there's no pattern to its themes. I've dreamed of celebs I knew by face, but not name. I've dreamed about has-beens, oldies, currently popular icons. I still remember a really weird dream I had about Chuck Norris and my friend Ginny back in the 90's. (Chuck didn't like me in that dream.)

Two nights ago I was surprised to find myself in a pasture with Liev Schreiber. He was working on a house. In fact, I think he had MOVED an old house to a lovely rolling plain with a big hillside. Up on this hill sat a very shabby plantation-style home with peeling paint. The house was painted red, white and blue in the pattern of an American flag. As I faced the house the blue field of white stars was on the upstairs floor to the far left with the rest of the house in a faded red and white stripe. To most people it would sound hideous, but in the dream it was an inspirational beacon symbolizing freedom of expression.

We strode up the hill with purpose. I'm not sure for what purpose, but something. When we got to the top of the hill, Liev indicated that in order to enter the home we had to do so from the second floor. The only way to get to the second floor was to shimmy up a pole and scramble over a dilapidated and none-too-sturdy deck railing.

In real life, I couldn't shimmy to save my life, but in my dream I wasn't too bad. Not graceful, but at least I could defy gravity enough to get my ample caboose up off the ground. About nine feet off the ground I was winded and called down to Liev.

"You know, I don't know how you're going to do this with groceries."

"It'll be okay. It's not that bad."

"Really?" I said doubtfully and kept shimmying.

At about 12 feet off the ground I shouted down, "Now what?" Liev indicated I should throw one leg over the balcony railing and then go down the balcony toward the stars and find the door to get inside. As I threw my leg over the balcony railing I noticed the balcony wasn't there -- just the railing. So, I just held on to the fragile railing and tip-toed over to the end where there was a gap between the end of the railing and the place where the door was supposed to be. In fact, I'm not sure there was even a door there. And when I looked back, Liev was gone.

In real life I would have been totally freaked out by the entire scenario. But in my dream I was a very matter-of-fact girl and took it all in stride -- the house, the shimmying, the danger, my disappearing friend, as if these were things that happen in every day life.

It's just as well anyway, cause I still swear Liev Strieber could totally not get groceries into that house.