Molly Peterson

This Week In Dreams

I dreamed of Helen Mirren. She was wearing the dress she wore to the Oscars this year – which I figured out only when I recognized in it the same did-you-staple-on-the-shawl/hot-sex-cougar quality the dress had in real life.

Also, it was silver, not red.

And she was dressed in a gown, but with Jane Tennison’s hair. She was drinking wine from a stemmed glass, too, like an alcoholic detective would if she remembered to decant before gulping.

I ran toward Helen Mirren like I was being chased by an island full of cannibals. And when I asked her to help my mom, who has cancer in her brain, and a port to put medicine in, in the cranium which surrounds it, and I pled, what should I do, her eyes met mine over the rim of the glass and she said, young lady, there are two things you must know. The one is that I cannot help you simply because I have no earthly idea how to do so. The other is that I. Don’t. Care.

The next night I dreamed of John Mayer, He told me he had to go have sex with Jessica Simpson in his helicopter and didn’t have time to talk. Then he started playing air guitar while making his “O” face. Though I think I was imagining his face wrong because when his face stretched out you could see the bone structure very clearly. Like Skeletor. Or Maria Shriver.

When I have told my friends this story so far, I have omitted my dreamt encounter with Daniel Day Lewis. It was in an elevator. I didn’t ask him whether he could help cure my mom’s cancer. Somehow I perceived that he would have no verbal answer. Perhaps I sensed that when I peered deep into his green eyes. Green, the green of jungles, or a sod covered hillside in a thinning midmorning fog.

Besides, he looked like he had a question for me. And that question was: “do you mind if I lick your face? I must. And you must stand very still.”

I felt I had no choice but to do so. He asked so very nicely.

Laura Linney was the only one who offered concrete answers. She tilted her chin down and told me, very directly and somewhat alluringly, her eyes unusually close to mine, that I should not pray at the false altar of Wikimedicine. Then the smile that played at the corner of her lips disappeared as she told me that I should remember the facts, and not speculate on things which I know not. Her head shook from side to side in a “no” as she insinuated that I should lay off on nagging my brother, but even her Yankee directness would not allow her to make me feel guilty about that one. Finally, Laura Linney told me that I would be no real use to anyone if I let my imagination run wild.

I think Daniel Day Lewis was the most help.