6 Jun 2025
Dream
My sister Ruby is pregnant in waking life and I dreamed she became president. She had already moved into the White House and my sister Marley was closer to that process than I had been. When I visited I found that my former roommate Meghan had been staying in the spare bedroom near “the Presidential Suite” where Ruby and my brother-in-law Jackson, now First Gentleman of the United States, slept. I was in this spare bedroom on the bed, and Meghan kept lying across my legs and talking on the phone with a friend of hers. The call went on super long and her friend was apparently emotional, but I was getting annoyed with how long the call was taking and that she was in this bedroom at all. The call was more annoying than her presence, however. At some point I was in a car driving away, Meghan was there again in the passenger seat, still talking to her friend on the phone, and I asked some question trying to get at speeding up our departure or doing something on my behalf. She couldn’t talk to me and her friend on the phone quite at the same time, so I feigned innocence of her predicament and apologized and let the situation go.
The floor on which Ruby and Jackson resided was unfinished and contained spaces with active construction. When I roamed about there were various staff at their jobs and I didn’t know who or where anyone was. I smiled at whoever I saw, especially a young black woman with straightened hair, a red sweater, and glasses, who appeared to work in the presidential nursery. We saw each other only in passing. I eventually found Ruby and Jackson’s bedroom, where I planned to greet Ruby as “Good morning, Madam President.” Immediately Jackson said I looked very pretty with my long eyelashes—Ruby and I were wearing thick, long, black eyelash extensions for some reason. I thanked him and explained that they were extensions. Ruby was lying on the ground distressed and crying. I forwent the greeting because that didn’t seem like the right move. She was in a soft purple bathrobe and her hair was up. Mom was milling about this room talking to her. Mom explained that she had been separated from her baby for the first time, just for the day, as was necessary for presidency apparently. This resulted in a shock to her system that made her emotional and struggle to think clearly. She would get to see her baby again each night, and I imagined her carrying and rocking her baby in bed each night. Ruby soon recovered enough to be less despondent, and seemed ready to get things going. Marley came in with potential outfits for Ruby’s acceptance speech. There were pink professional suits that looked inspired by founding father garb, but still quite modern. I thought these were the best choice, because they were feminine, modern, yet echoed tradition. Ruby seemed to like these too, but Mom took all of us to a big “dressing hall” like a bridal shop almost, and the blonde white lady attendant showed us more gowns and shoes. When we first went in, the lady pointed out some contraption or outfit on a mannequin (don’t remember), and I, strongly approving, said “and on the eighth day, God made that.” The lady didn’t laugh, nor did anyone else, but I laughed and moved on. The lady fiddled with a green, intentionally wrinkly, peasant-inspired dress, and my mom pointed out iridescent green shoes that looked like beetle shells. I thought Ruby wouldn’t like this outfit as much as I would, so we moved on. There was fabric with a gold backing and red dragons, and I pulled that out as a suggestion. Mom offered to create and sew a dress with Ruby for the occasion, so we could make exactly what we want. Ruby tried on an orange two piece dress, essentially a swimsuit bra of sorts and a long patterned skirt. This didn’t seem presidential and I wasn’t for it, and Ruby said she didn’t want an outfit that overemphasized her beauty. Mom heard her, but I could tell she still wanted something that showed off Ruby’s beauty. I thought about how Ruby had modeled for a time and was tall and slender, and now she was president, and conservatives would hate that because they can’t call her ugly or attack her in the ways they normally attack women. She fits many of their standards while being fiercely intelligent and liberal. Ruby was sitting in a chair for most of this, looking at dresses.
There was another point in the dream where I saw a former co-worker, one I had indirectly reached out to for friendship and who had never responded to the offer, was leaping hugely from house to house in a blue workman’s outfit. He was some kind of landscaper maybe, he wore a little blue hat and had a machine on his back with a handheld spout, and he leapt softly and hugely from property to property. He nodded and smiled at me in recognition, but also awkwardly and sadly, as he clearly didn’t want to engage with me further and felt bad about it. I watched him leap away and moved on. At another point I was crossing a crumbling border wall separating the highway from a small runoff area with pale dirt and rocks. I had to leap over a big relatively clean toilet on the other side of the crumbling wall, and follow a bunch of people somewhere. It was ugly but not distressing surroundings. A Chinese family walked ahead of me and headed to my left, arguing about the toilet and one of the sons leaping over it at the wrong time or in an unfair manner or something. I understood much of their conversation but not all of it.
