I am a professional competitive eater. My partner (a very thin Japanese man) and I are training for an event that will occur in two weeks - it's a brat-eating contest, and we want to be well prepared. We start off with a large Caesar salad split between us. The salad was made in an industrial-sized mixing bowl, and it looks like it can hold maybe ten gallons. After we scarf the salad down easily, we begin to eat ice cream. It's flavored with chocolate and peanut butter, and we're eating out of a fifteen gallon cardboard carton, similar to the ones they have in ice cream shops, only bigger. Ice cream is one of my favorite foods to eat, so I'm wolfing it down the hatch much faster than my partner. Suddenly, a Mr. Miyagi-like character steps out of the shadows and raps my partner on the head with a cane. This coach character lets my partner know in no uncertain terms that if he falls behind me again, he will be severely punished.

I am on a sound stage hosting some Today-like morning talk program. We're doing a segment on makeup for fall, and the lady we've got on to host the piece is not Joan Rivers, but she's got the same stylist. You know the look: pink tweed pantsuit, 30-odd years of facial plastic surgery, and heavy, heavy pancake clown makeup. After filming stops, the woman begins to attack my look in a passive-aggressive manner. I wear little to no makeup on a day-to-day basis (true), and Rivers-doppelgänger is aghast that I haven't even bothered to wear eyeliner and lipliner on the air. She's walking me through the compact options that she'd recommend I immediately start implementing into my daily routine, and, much to my chagrin, my mother is walking behind Rivers-doppelgänger, nodding and smiling at her suggestions. Mama has the nerve to tell me that Rivers-doppelgänger is totally right, that I should be more aware of my appearance. I am irritated, because success in medical school has nothing to do with my makeup habits. (After writing this, I'm kind of thinking that Rivers is her own doppelgänger, but whatever. Also, interesting fun fact: when I image googled "too much makeup" in order to find a picture for this post, Tammy Faye Baker popped up everywhere, but no Joan Rivers. Since Baker just kicked the bucket, I'll keep it classy with another picture.)

After I leave the sound stage, I run into a guy I know. This guy always has beautiful curly hair (not you, Scott, though your hair's also very nice). For some reason, he's chopped his hair into a very short and wholly unappealing buzz cut. The effect is so dramatic that I don't recognize him at first. However, as soon as he opens his mouth, I can tell who he is. Years of people telling this kid he's a genius (which he is, in some respects) haven't served him all that well; he assumes that he's an authority on many subjects, when, in fact, he presents himself as pompous and extremely irritating most of the time.

I ditch the kid and take a route walking home with my mom that leads us right by St. Patrick's Parish, the church at which I was First Communion-ed and confirmed. I spot a limo in the driveway along with rows of catering tables - a wedding's obviously taking place. Mama insists that we peek inside to see who's getting hitched, so we walk in the main entrance. St. Pat's is magnificent in my dream, with a vestibule that's more like a huge reception hall. Tables are set up in here for the post-nuptials dinner and dance. Of course, my mom immediately spots a woman she recognizes and is assigned by said woman to man the guest book. I follow her to the guest book table, but she soon sees someone else she must greet, and she abandons me. I am grudgingly manning her post when a woman who looks vaguely familiar approaches. She begins to tell me a story about the mysterious disappearance and death of a man who is apparently one of her relatives. He was going out to meet a friend whose truck had stalled in an isolated area, and the last person who saw him alive was the person at Citgo who sold him cigarettes on his way out of town. I am very intrigued by her story, and I ask her questions until I've gotten all useful information about the case from her. (I had a weird in-dream déjà vu experience while the woman was telling the story of this unsolved murder. I don't know if it was a component of another dream that I'd forgotten before writing down or if the story's loosely based on reality. It was truly bizarre to feel déjà vu in a dream, in any case.)

I am at my apartment hanging out with a few people, including Scott, Courtney, and Sarah. We're just sitting around, having a few drinks. I go to the bathroom, and when I return to the living room, there are fifteen or twenty more people standing around. Someone's cranked some crappy rap music up, and I am apparently throwing a party now. I don't know anyone who's raided my apartment, and I am furious.

Vito woke me up, and I fell asleep to have a dream very similar to the first. The only real difference was that party guests knocked at my door. When I answered the door, the fifteen or twenty strangers swarmed in my living room with a keg and started getting ridiculous. I was still very angry during this dream.

I'm sitting on the couch in my living room, petting Vito, who's asleep on my lap. Tiff comes in, followed by a handful of people. I think I see my landlord coming in the door. (I haven't told her yet that I got a kitten -- it adds a surcharge to the rent. Paying the surcharge isn't an issue, but I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet. This makes Vito an undercover kitty, at present.) I leap up and basically thrust Vito in her arms, saying excitedly, "I got a kitten!" I think I was trying to act really pumped, like I had just acquired the cat. Anyway, the person I thrust Vito upon is not my landlord. It's Tiff's father's new girlfriend, and she's allergic to cats. I am embarrassed.

I only remember one tiny snippet from my dream last night, but I'll blog it, as I'm known for my great subtlety. If you know me, you'll likely be amused.

A friend's boyfriend is following me around my apartment. He's getting underfoot the way a small child or animal would. I think he's trying to help me with something, as this guy's been sucking up to me for months now. Little does he know he's trying to dig himself out of a whole a mile deep and a foot wide. I turn around to face him and, nose to nose, in my politest voice, I tell him to fuck off.

(If I would've gone lucid in this dream, what a time I would have enjoyed! Sadly, it was not to be; I didn't get to rant to this dude like I've always wanted to in real life.)

I am at the movies, in the company two girls with whom I went to high school. For anonymity and simplicity, I'll refer to them as Girl #1 and Girl #2. Girl #1 is, strangely enough, the same bitchy woman who recently made another dream appearance (I honestly have no idea why she keeps popping up. Still haven't seen her since graduation.). Girl #2 was a friend of mine. We're in the theatre watching some slasher flick; it's one of those where the killer is a sadistic semi driver who stalks his unsuspecting victims along the fine highways of America, A.K.A. your basic, formulaic, lame horror movie.

When the credits finally roll, I am complaining about how crappy the movie was and commenting to the girls that we should've gone to something we knew would be decent. Girl #1 replies by telling me that I am too judgmental and conceited when it comes to film and basically tells me to lower my pompous standards. Girl #2 does what she always did in high school in similar situations. (She was a fairly popular girl who got along well with everyone. If Girl #2 and I were alone, we'd get along swimmingly. However, if she was in the presence of people who were of a higher high school caste than my own, she would defer to them and ignore me, for all intensive purposes. She was so fun to hang out with that she got away with this, and I remained friends with her.) Since Girl #1 is higher on the social food chain, Girl #2 backs her up and denigrates my taste in movies. I am shocked that she still acts in such an immature fashion, considering that high school rank hardly matters after graduation day. This behavior makes me angry, and more than a little bit sorry for her.

We leave the theatre and head to an appointment. I don't know where or why we're going until we arrive at Miller Park. We head out onto the field, joining the team, who are running some batting drills. I go over and chit-chat to Prince Fielder as he is working on his long ball. He's hitting homers left, right, and center while I'm talking him up about the season, etc. Girl #2 is talking J.J. Hardy's ear off, while Girl #1 can't get anyone to pay her any attention except Matt Wise. I laugh. Girl #2 and I leave for dinner with Prince and J.J., ditching Girl #1, who's still trying to find a better Brewers dinner date.

I am at the annual School of Medicine ice cream social. I'm excited to be there and very hungry, so I head to the tables to check out what flavors are available this year. All of the administrative staff are peddling their wares, but the ice cream flavors that they're scooping are just bizarre. The flavors are strange combinations, e.g., blueberry caramel cashew crunch. As I walk from staff member to staff member, I feel more and more disappointed with the way the ice cream social's turned out this year. Though everyone's eager to give me ice cream, nothing on hand is even remotely appealing. I eventually settle on a peach cobbler chocolate combo, and I am supremely annoyed with the dessert I end up eating.

(Weird dream, especially considering that the SMPH ice cream social is always delicious.)