42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

I had two distinct dreams today because I woke up for a bit in the middle.

The only part I remember from the first part was Raymond Burr. Scary, huh?

It is night, and a friend and I are supposed to meet with someone who looks like Raymond Burr. Possibly for legal advice, which might make him more like Perry Mason, which makes him fictional and dead.
Anyway, we got to talk to him. Find him in a gravel parking lot by a church, and ask him some questions. He wants to get in the car for a minute.
This guy is a huge man. He settles down in the seat beside me, and his fat sort of flows over all the available room, including toward me. He’s also wearing shorts, so I can see wide expanses of hairy fat.
Then he wants me to drive around for a bit so we can talk. But before we leave, a young teen Perry/Raymond must know stops by the car and needs a ride. She looks very thin, like a puff of air. I agree. But I’m already stuffed in the car and actually in pain, because my friend is already sitting behind me and the seat is moved all the way up, and because I’m trying not to let the flowing fat touch me.
I really don’t want to move at all to open the third door in my car, but Raymond/Perry doesn’t seem interested in getting back out of the car to let her in.
So I suck in a breath, supress the pain, and open the door to let the girl get in too.
And then I attempt to drive.
I find that my car won’t go. It’s sad, unpowerful engine is not enough to handle our combined bulks. Perhaps the little slip of girl put us over the top. I try harder to get the car to move, and it does, very reluctantly, but it’s clear I won’t be able to drive in traffic like this. It’s not safe.

Back for more sleep.

I am working as an assistant to a wealthy family. I thought that it would be something more cerebral, like making appointments and organizing charity events and doing research, and instead, I’m ordered around like a maid or secretary of old.
The main driving force in the household is a middle-aged woman with unattractively permed hair in that frizzy sense, wearing large, bright and flowing outfits. She wants me to think she’s sophisticated, and puts on a show, but I eventually realize that she’s about appearance and acceptance, down to the way she treats me, which is poorly.
She comes home, and throws some wet towels on the floor. She doesn’t tell me what to do with them, but I can tell if she sees them later, she will yell at me for not picking them up, though I am not the maid.
I want to marvel at the house. It is huge, but at the same time, it is not decorated well. It’s like they bought the house because they thought it was what rich people were supposed to do, but didn’t know what to do with it afterward. So it’s just like a middle-class home, only much bigger. The towels, I pick up, for instance, are not of particularly good quality. There’s also a wet comforter, also not all that nice.
I search around for a laundry room or somewhere to put them where they can dry out. I don’t know for sure that they have a maid, and if it turns out I’m it, I want out of this job. I haven’t even been shown the full house yet.
The husband is more like a background presence. It’s clear that I’m not to bother him. Perhaps it’s in some paranoid fear that I will be a temptress, but I don’t find him remotely attractive. I catch a glimpse of him coming from swimming, so I see wet gray hair and wet, curly white chest hair, which truly turns me off.
They also have two children, either late teens or college age. I don’t interact with them either.
The woman wants me to do something. I don’t remember what. The family is going out for a daylong drive, and I’m to do whatever it is she wants before they get back.
But she doesn’t tell me how to do it.
I still haven’t seen the full house, and I’m tempted to explore, but I know she likely has video cameras everywhere, watching me. I see a set of stairs leading into a basement or lower floor, and see a bunch of drywall stacked up.
I don’t even know where the kitchen is. But I do finally see the maid and tell her about the towels so I won’t get in trouble.
I don’t have a purpose here. I’m uncomfortable, and the woman tries to make me more uncomfortable. I’m sure she’s going to fire me for no reason. The pay is good, but just as I know she’ll fire me, I also know she’s going to try to stiff me out of my money too. I go into a room I haven’t been into before, and it is messy. I find a kitten and play with it, and wonder if they’ve forgotten about it, because it seems so starved for attention.

I end up going to a concert and bring my camera. I see a bunch of my coworkers from my current job, hanging out near the front. It’s more or less first-come-first-served seating on the ground. A fog machine is rolling out thick smoke accented by blue lights, but I know it’s also mingled with other smoke. I find it choking, but am glad for the chance to socialize, especially since I’ve been stuck with the controlling woman.
I’m especially interested in taking pictures of people dancing in the smoke. I start trying to take them, and notice someone I think I recognize from high school, though on waking, I know I don’t know this person. I pretend I don’t see him. If he wants to talk to me, fine, but I don’t like to talk to people I barely knew and pretend that I liked them or that I have any interest in how they’re doing now.

The high school theme continues a little longer, because when I go out for intermission, it’s as if I’m walking through the halls of a high school, and occasionally glimpse people I know. But I walk proudly because I no longer feel like a nerd to be tormented. I don’t want to talk to anyone, but I want them to see me doing well for myself.
And then I catch a glimpse of the woman I’m working for. I don’t want her to see me. If she does, then she’ll wonder what I’m doing there, or set me to some stupid task, and make me miss the rest of the concert.
I also see a bulletin board with a recent newspaper clipping with a letter to the editor. By me. Though my name is spelled wrong. And whatever it says, I don’t want my new employer to see it.

But she has caught a glimpse of me, and tracks me down, sees the letter, and reads it. It might be critical of rich people putting on fronts. Who knows.
She’s impressed that I’ve written the letter, had it published. And then her attitude toward me changes.

When I go back to her house, she starts treating me like a human being. I realize that she’s a human too, and that she was trying to put on an act, the same way that I was trying to convey without words to anyone that might have known me, that I was doing quite well for myself despite expectations and tauntings.

She talks to me, and asks my opinion. I ask her where the kitchen is, and she’s embarrassed. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t cook; they never eat there. She supposes she was there once, but she doesn’t go in that part of the house.
It becomes apparent, after talking to her longer, that she hasn’t been in much of the house, because so much of it is intimidatingly empty. She bought it because she had this idea of prosperity being property, a huge house, but didn’t know what to do with it afterward. She’s scared to reveal her ignorance to anyone.
The drywall I’ve spotted in the floor below: the basement was supposed to be finished, but she scared off the contractor. She’s never been down there anyway.

But the reason they really bought the house is for the view. She asks me what the best part of the house is. I tell her the view, and with glistening, excited eyes, tell her I dream of shooting their view.
We’re outside, but it doesn’t feel like it. And there’s an illusion where we’re sitting, that the water comes right up to the patio and stretches out into the ocean. It is breathtaking and as we sit there, enjoying the warm breeze, the sun begins to set. It looks like I could walk into the sunset from here.

I get out my camera and the woman wants me to start shooting portaits of her children. I agree, though I’d rather be doing the sunset. But the lighting is so good, and I try to get the girl to let me do a candid photo, without her looking directly at the camera. Then the girl notices that my lens has been damaged. I look, and sure enough, it’s bent at the filter threads. I’m devastated. As I try to bend them back into place, the end of the lens begins to unravel or unfold like a lens hood. And then I’m very upset because I don’t have the money to spend on a new lens. I hope it will be all right ot finish my pictures, but without the lens, the camera is worthless.