Media Dreamcatcher

This morning (a time when I start to remember my dreams) I dreamt that one of my students had found and added me on Friendster, and that I felt compelled to delete my account, as well as the MySpace account that I only have to stay visible with a couple of non-Friendsters. I think I regretted having to let go of Friendster, but realized it was for the best. And of course I was reminded of Cory Archangel's "Friendster suicide" project last year, which really wasn't such a big sacrifice since he was just making a spectacle of his navigation to the now hip MySpace as his Web 2.0 homebase. The fact that I am having dreams about the internet is disconcerting but I'm trying instead to see the humor in it. Last fall when I first started teaching full time I was having intense dreams about clicking and navigating on the Mac desktop, wading through a sea of Photoshop and Quark windows and palette options. I still want to do a performance from this. Though I think the CPU/Proust performance some folks did recently was a pretty good idea, mine would be strictly user interface and software, as long as I can make sure it doesn't turn into a big promo for Adobe. I think in fact it would be just the opposite.

I also dreamed that I got married to an ex of mine, who I learned from the grapevine is actually getting married sometime later this year. My dreams are usually simple to analyze, and I trace this one to a couple of moments of media consumption: Yesterday I watched a episode 8 of season 4 of the HBO series Six Feet Under. The details are not important but basically one of the main characters, Nate, is getting back together with his ex Brenda, and there is this sense that this time it will work out in spite of, or rather, because of their messy past attempt at a relationship. Brenda has just betrayed a perfectly stable relationship with a cute tuba player and we can see that a return to Nate is in the works (why else would they have included her this whole time in the storyline?). I am in the midst of watching this series for the first time, an endeavor I started last summer at the recommendation of my grad advisor... curses on my time!

I had not checked Friendster for a while until yesterday, and I also blame this morning's dreams on this recent log-in. I considered changing my About me status, which states: "not getting married. not having a baby". I feel it's a bit hostile, given the fact that many of my peers are having babies and getting married. But that of course is the point, to announce clearly that I am no where near this kind of status and do not care to be. Or do I?

During a recent visit with a friend who is both having a baby and getting married in the coming year, I found myself compelled to make reference to various television programs as they related to things that came up in "real life", and felt embarressed about this. I watched some TV as a kid, The Cosby Show and Northern Exposure but did not embrace it again in this water-cooler-socially-acceptable style until after college. I'll be the first to admit that my increased consumption of electronic media is a sign of too much alone time. I would be better off reading more books. And so, with this story I start this blog, wondering how many others have had media-infiltrated dreams...