More words that have occurred to me in the mornings:
Chaparral; popinjay; Passendale.
~ ~ ~
Also dreamt this: I was crossing over the border from the States into Canada. Customs was a check~out counter at a supermarket, and the cashier was the border guard.
For some reason, I had lied and described myself as the wife of an Israeli citizen; can't remember why, except that I felt that I had to... maybe I thought it would get me through Customs more quickly, or that it was more respectable for me to be a wife rejoining her husband than a woman travelling alone.
And the cashier/guard subtly questioned me, under the guise of making small~talk, on the places I was planning on visiting after returning to Canada, like maybe, hmmmmmNew York, maybe?
And I laughed nervously, and said, New York? That's more dangerous than Israel nowadays! I wouldn't even dream of going there, and tried desperately to think of what would be the New York equivalent of the West Bank & the Gaza Strip, so I could say something incisively poignant yet disarmingly witty...*
I was worried that they would be able to access my personal information and ascertain that I wasn't in fact married to anybody; but I decided that I was probably safe for the moment, and that despite all efforts we hadn't quite reached that Orwellian state of perfection yet if only thanks to everpresent human fallibility. {And besides, it's only a supermarket, right? How efficient could they be?}
The whole process was taking longer than I expected. The guard/clerk finally told me there was one last, small, fee to pay before I finally could go through {y'know, like one of those unexpected hidden fees you have to pay at the airport}. I gave her the {worn, blue, Canadian} five dollar bill & waited for my change.
Bu instead of giving me my change, she just held onto the bill; and she looked a bit abashed, as if she was trying to casually segue into another conversation but she couldn't think of anything to say. I looked around and saw that they had turned the lights off in the rest of the supermarket, and I was the only customer left.
I realized she was suspicious of me, but had nothing she actually could pin down; so she was using every delaying tactic in the book, hoping I might let drop something incriminating. She didn't want to be the one who let me get away.
I think I may have accused her of stonewalling me, but I can't remember; I think the dream may have ended there. I don't recall making it past Customs.
~ ~ ~
* This comparison of NY to the Holy Land was probably prompted by a clip {seen on Jon Stewart's Daily Show} of Madonna on her recent pilgrimage, giving a speech wherein she desribes Israel as being no more dangerous than New York.
Posted by edgar at October 28, 2004 02:47 PM