Girls, Why Does This Building Haunt My Dreams??????????

"I need a DOLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I NEED A DOLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!"
----Neely 0'Hara in "Valley Of The Dolls"

Darlings, I am telling you, we have all had days when we felt like this, but for me it cuts a little closer. No, lambs, I am not drugged out in some institution, but I faced a situation five years ago that made me wonder if I would be.

The situation was a crazy tenant living above me. One night, back in January of 2006, I was wakened out of a sound sleep, to hear music so loud I thought there was a party in my living room. There might as well have been. The tenant upstairs, was having a blast--whether alone or with guests I never found out--but her speakers were on the floor, going full blast, so much so, the chochkas on my bookshelf were shaking to the point I thought they would fall off.

What did I know? I called the super, who intervened, and put a stop to that. That night. But at least once a week it happened again. Till I was so rattled by sound I never knew if I would sleep that night or not. But finally two things happened that helped.

The first was Valentine's Day, when the scales tipped in my favor. I happened to be off that day, and when I got home, I found, on a bookshelf, a pair of men's glasses that were certainly not mine. Had I been robbed? It didn't look like it. Once again, I phoned the super, who said they were his, and he would explain. When he arrived, he pointed to my living room ceiling, which was completely damaged. Not broken through, but cracked and peeled all over. It seems the nutso above me had left her dishwasher running, and water had seeped down through three floors. What happened to get the ceiling fixed is another story. When I discovered the damage, I was furious, and told the super about the noise. He ran upstairs, banged on the door, and suddenly I hear him yelllng "You fuckin' bitch!" Clearly, he is reading her the riot act. Within a few days, she was thrown out, and peace was regained.

But not before stress forced a visit to my doctor. He had put me on Paxil, an anti-depressant, about two years before; now he had me on Klonopin, for anxiety. Not only that; at night, as perscribed, it helps me to sleep, as I have had issues about getting to sleep since I was beyond the cradle. But one interesting side effect for me is that it induces vivid and very strange dreasm.

Which brings me to the photo. That happens to be Lafayette School in Highland Park, New Jersey. Now, for me to dream about my home town is not unusual, but why a location not directly associated with me. I knew kids who had gone there; in fact, even my own mother had, but, aside from seeing it from the outside, I had never so much as set foot in. And yet this Gothic looking building looms in my dreams.

Girls, I figured it out. The design, the shape of the building, matches the abandoned school in the opening scene of the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis classic "Prom Night." First seen through a mirror lens, the school is the site of young Robin Hammond's death, the single act that proples the killer to committ the gruesome prom murders six years later. And I am telling you, Wendy was asking for it!!!!!!!!!

Does my dream(s) of Lafayette qualify as a nightmare? Not really; just a reminder of how the past seeps into our consciousness in ways we sometimes do not realize.

The building still stands today, and is now condominium apartments. One of my former classmates lived there for awhile. It must have been strange--a living space that had once been a classsroom in a school atteneded when you were a child. (This classmate had gone to Lafayette when younger.)

I wonder what Rod Serling would have made of all this? And at least Freddy Krueger has not invaded my klonopin induced dreams!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nightie night, girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!