Back In School, About to Graduate, Ms. Henderson

In junior high, my history teacher was Mrs. Henderson. (Actually, she was my 9th grade teacher; 8th grade was Mrs. Hummel.) She got a job teaching at my high school the year I moved from Jr to HS. She was young, attractive, had a heavy southern accent that due to her voice was charming rather than grating, and was of course one of the “cool” teachers who’d you’d hang out with after school just because she was fun to be with. Tonight I dreamed of her.

I first remember driving around in a car at night with a few friends. I had been toying around with a couple of music applications, one which allowed me to work directly with sound waves while another allowed me to create tempoed music. My desire was to create music that was hip to dance to and fun to hear: basically, good techno. In addition I also wanted to create music like Bjork. The guy I was in the car with (I was driving) was also a musician, and I think he was someone I knew in real life, in college, a guy who knew his way around the studio. I forgot his name.

Anyway, driving down the road of a mostly empty city at night, some music came on the radio which I liked. “See,” I said, “this is exactly the kind of music I’d love to be able to create.”

“I totally hate that stuff,” he said. “Totally, absolutely hate this stuff.”

“But I’d also do stuff like Karlhe–”

“Totally hate this stuff.”

He was adamant: he wouldn’t listen to another thing I said now that he knew I wanted to use the software to make what I considered to be very good techno.

The next part I remember, I was in a school, about to graduate. I know I’m a senior and exams are coming up in a couple of weeks. I walk around from classroom to classroom, hall to hall, running into people I know. (This is probably due to my recent addition of people I knew from High School via Facebook, particularly Jenna, who was in the dream, on the periphery.) At one point a guy kept handing me dollar bills and two dollar bills which were fake and had pictures of pyramids with garages underneath and other items in them. (The pictures also seemed to move.) He gave me a $1 bill and $2 bill before I told him to simply make them $1,000,000 bills so I can tell they’re fake. Sitting next to me (and walking around, taking care of her own business) was Ms. Henderson. (I don’t know in the dream whether she was married still, so I’ll simply call her “Ms.”)

She looked as young as I remember her looking 11 years ago, so right about my age now. Beautiful black hair, radiant white skin, and very red lipstick. As we talked, she kept pinching my cheeks, and I sort of made fun of myself by saying that before all my weight loss she would have had to grab a whole handful. This kept her laughing. We talked about various things, including school and what I would be doing after it ended. (In the back of my mind I was scared because I didn’t know anything about any of the other classes, but I didn’t let this bother me. I knew I’d been through this before and would continue on with flying colors; something about this didn’t sit right. I guess I knew it was a dream, but didn’t at the same time.) I remember having a strong urge to kiss her, and I think she wanted the same. (It was my dream, of course she did.)

I dn’t know where this all came from. I hadn’t thought about her in a long time. But if I were to have had one schoolboy crush it would’ve been Mrs. Henderson, though I didn’t really think about it that way at the time.

I woke up that morning a bit… well, in the mood, and tried to get back to sleeping. I hoped that maybe later in the dream she and I would end up going to dinner, then maybe to her place, but that never happened: I couldn’t go back to sleep.

At the same time, I remember a college teacher of mine–I forgot her name–who led an aerobics class. She was married at the time I took the class, but divorced when I next met her. I just wish I’d been attractive enough then to attract her. Blond, fit, active… yeah, but it was purely physical. Not that it matters in a fantasy, right?