ESD#14: last night's dream

Last night, I dreamed that I was helping Dukie from "The Wire" write a letter to a Goddard College recruiter who had promised him a full scholarship after hearing him read an essay about how his only chance out of poverty was to go to college.

This is one of the most straightforward dreams I've ever had. I'll dissect below.

Inner city kid going to college. A friend wrote this article about an impoverished kid in Tampa who hopes that winning math competitions will earn him a scholarship to MIT. It's touching and a bit heartbreaking. Reading it yesterday brought back memories of math competitions, which taught me that i) I'm not that smart, and ii) I'm a lot less socially awkward than I thought I was.

Goddard College. This is a hippie school that Dukie would never attend. I think this entered my dream, because E and I recently passed the Montessori school in Codman Square, Dorchester, and I said, "If our kids want to go to Montessori school, they're going to the ghetto Montessori school in Codman. Because if they're keeping it real, they're keeping it really real." This joke cracked us up, which is odd, considering how I was so offended when someone recently used the word ghetto, as I wrote in this post. Of course, I was using the term affectionately.

Promise of a scholarship. In my dream, the recruiter never returned Dukie's calls. This is like our neighbor David, who's been trying to get a security job for months. E has helped him draft a resume and write cover letters. It's so frustrating, because our state senator has promised to put in a good word for him, and he puts so much hope in this, but I've never seen anything come of it. It's especially hard, because he has a prison record, and her recommendation should serve as a character witness.

Middle school in general. Last night brought back a lot of OLD memories. We had friends over for Valentine's Day fondue, and E told a story about sophomore year of high school when he made me a valentine, planned to give it to me in Geometry class, but chickened out after another boy in the class sent me a singing telegram valentine (our high school tradition). E gave the homemade card to me the next day; I still have it. I brought out a shoebox of old letters and found a couple letters from this other kid. I've decided to mail them to him, since I know he's reachable through Myspace.