Welcome to Becky's Night Terror Fun Land

The older I get, the faster time flies. The faster time flies, the quicker my summer ends. The quicker my summer ends, the sooner my back-to-school anxieties present themselves. My back-to-school anxieties started early this year.

These anxieties usually manifest at night around a week before school begins. I have recurring dreams about losing control in my classroom and throwing erasers at students.

But this year, my nocturnal weirdness kicked in the second week of July. I woke up screaming one night, then whimpered that my right arm hurt. At least that is what my husband, Dan, said. My night terrors are not much more than a fuzzy memory for me most mornings. (Poor Dan.)

Then I had this weird dream about school and our new principal. In this dream, I saw our old principal wandering the building, crying, and waving goodbye to everyone. That same night, I dreamed that my dress was caught by the wind and blown over my head, like I was being exposed, bare naked for the world to see.

In real life, I saw a couple of my students at the farmers' market last weekend and a few of them at the park a few weeks ago. They all still seemed happy to see me, which I took to mean they haven't started hating me over the summer. In fact, one little second grader said, "I can't wait to see you again!"

So I thought, "Okay. That should be the end of it. I saw my students, and it didn't kill me. Now I will concentrate on making the summer last."

That's been my mantra this year. If I "be in the moment," stop and concentrate on the fun stuff, I can prevent the summer from flying by.

But even after these reassuring encounters with my students, I had two more night terrors, another anxious dream about the new principal, and a dream about my throat bleeding and the recent fruit recall at Fred Meyer. (In the dream, my throat started bleeding at Fred Meyer while I was checking out the listeria-infested stone fruits, so, yes, I really did mean to put those last two ideas together.)

This has been the strangest, most sleepless summer I have ever experienced. I hope this year has just been an anomaly and will not worsen with age. I thought you were supposed to mellow as you got older. I know Dan would appreciate it too if this could just be a unique situation. He gets less sleep than I do during Becky's Crazy Night Terror Times.

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Lots of Les Mis in This World

I was first exposed to Les Misérables in junior high. I was performing in a community production of Gypsy because I had cool parents, and they were totally fine with their preteen being in a show about strippers. I was spending the night with a fellow thespian from the cast, and she popped in the Les Mis soundtrack. I was so mesmerized by the music that I used my own money to buy the cassette the next morning. (Yes, this whole experience occurred in the pre-CD/MP3 world, which is the reason it took me a bit longer to discover the show than it would nowadays.)

I even read the book, the unabridged version with all the digressions on argot, religious cloisters, street urchins, etc. I convinced my mother to buy it for me around the same time as my musical discovery. ("Of course I'm going to read a thousand-plus-page classic for fun, Mom!" I did read it . . . eventually . . . after I graduated from college.)

During my sophomore year, because I couldn't shut up about the show, my parents drove me to Boise to see the touring production at the Morrison Center. They didn't actually go to the production themselves—too depressing. They let me take a friend instead.

Fast-forward twenty-two years: I have now seen Les Mis in several different capacities. Touring productions, youth productions (one of which I even conducted), movie versions, and, now that it's finally been licensed, lots of community productions. Dan and I even saw it at the West End's Queen's Theatre a few years ago while it was still staged with the revolve.

In recent productions, Cosette has been turned into a blonde, despite the description of her chestnut brown locks in the book. Maybe it creates less confusion about her being Fantine's daughter who is traditionally blonde in the book and musical. But it just means one less light lyric soprano role for brunettes.

As a result of marrying a Broadway enthusiast, my husband, Dan, has also become a kind of Les Mis aficionado, whether willing or not. His reaction (after seeing it in London) has gone from, "It's a good story. I'd see it again," to "This music is starting to sound really familiar," to "They're doing another production of Les Mis?"

I never thought it could happen. Dan and I are both a little Les Mis'ed out.

Because I have sat through many, many productions of the show in recent years (none of which have been bad, by any means, just ubiquitous), it has given me time (lots of time, it's a long show) to think about how my perception of the musical has evolved since that first fateful encounter at a junior high sleepover.

The following is what I call, "Becky's Stages of Les Misérables."

The Junior High Years
I was most drawn to the story of Eponine's unrequited love of Marius. I mean, Eponine has the superior music and the more interesting personality for a reason. And what junior high kid can't relate to the injustice of a Marius choosing the popular rich girl?

The Late High School Years:
At this stage in my life, I had started dabbling in feminism, so naturally, I was intrigued by Fantine's fate as a sex worker and the lack of choices women of independent means were (and, sometimes, still are) given in society.

The College Years:
Still a feminist and empathetic to Fantine's story, I was also an education major and was particularly troubled by the death of the child urchin Gavroche.

The Adult Years (at least into my thirties):
It's all about revolution for me . . . and Enjolras. Hell, yeah! Let's fight some social injustice!

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Sometimes Hiking is Scary

I have got to get over this fear of heights thing. During our ten years of marriage, my husband, Dan, has encouraged me to take up mountain biking, hiking, cross-country skiing, and snowboarding, all of which usually involve some sort of high cliff, ridge, or unprotected side hill.

(I still refuse to snowboard, by the way. "You don't perform on stage with me. Don't expect me to go down a hill with you on a plank." Discussion over.)

You would think the easiest of these activities would be hiking, but you would be underestimating my neuroticism. 

The unprotected side hills are the worst, and Idaho has a lot of those because Idaho has a lot, and I mean A LOT, of sagebrush in its foothills.

What does a neurotic textbook acrophobe, like yours truly, do on said side hills?

I freeze.

And I have this physical reaction I call "chills up my butt." Maybe it's a type of vertigo, but I call it "chills up my butt" because it feels like an icy tingle, originating in my butt, that makes me want to sit down right where I am. You've heard of butterflies in the stomach. I get butterflies in my butt.

And then I visualize tumbling straight down the hill.

Any therapist would tell you the trick to desensitization would be to visual a successful hike down the path. But the first thing I imagine is me dying as I somersault through tick-infested sagebrush.

It doesn't help that I did begin to tumble down a mountain only to have the fall broken by some very scratchy underbrush last September. So now I can visual this deadly scenario with startling clarity.

Last week, Dan and I hiked Proctor Mountain in Sun Valley, an easy loop according to all of the hiking manuals. These manuals need a second rating for us acrophobes.

Aerobic Difficulty: Easy
Acrophobic Difficulty: Terrifying

As we left the protective barrier of trees on either side of the path and approached the top of the mountain, I realized I was trekking over a hill of pure sagebrush that immediately dropped off to my left.

I froze.

A couple of middle-aged hikers passed us. (We had passed them only a few minutes before.)

"Hmm . . . I'm surprised we're passing someone," said one of the hikers in a syrupy voice.

"We weren't going that slow. I'm just scared now," I grumbled under my breath. (I am also easily irritated when I get chills up my butt.)

As soon as the patronizing lady was out of sight, I started to cry.

"I can't do this. I'm going to die," I sniffed. "I need to go on--"

"You don't need to go on your butt," Dan interrupted.

(Can you tell we've been through this before?)

Dan got in front of me and held my hand while I grasped onto the sagebrush with my other hand until trail widened and flattened out. 

Once I felt secure enough to survey my surroundings, I noticed a small stone shrine with "you will be remembered" messages painted on it.

"What is this?" I asked Dan. "A shrine to someone who fell down the mountain?"

"I doubt it . . . "

We ran into a second shrine a little farther ahead.

"This does not make me feel very confident," I said.

"Maybe they were drunk," Dan mumbled unconvincingly.

Proctor Mountain is advertised as "not a good trail if you're looking for solitude." I am surprised that more people did not witness my minor breakdown. I am also surprised that I am alive and that I actually enjoyed most of the hike.

I did it, without going down on butt. We even hiked a second trail that week. Dan only had to help me through two short sections. And there was no crying involved.

Finally smiling (as opposed to crying) after finishing the scary part of the hike

Other hiking adventures:
In Which I Discover the Perils of Hiking During a High Water Year
Yet Another Hiking Story

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The Day My Eyes Got Big

I, like most severely near-sighted individuals, get my eyes dilated annually so that the doctor can make sure my floaters really are just floaters and not something more sinister. As I approach forty, I'm finding that lots of common physiological nuisances could become more sinister and less manageable. Or that could be my obsession with self-diagnosis via WebMD.

Here is a joke for you: My eyesight is so bad, even the eye doctor says Lasik wouldn't help! (Uproarious laughter, please.)

Actually, the funniest part about getting my eyes dilated is my husband, Dan.

Dan has better than twenty-twenty vision and has never had his eyes dilated in his life (as far as he can remember). Dan drives me to and from the eye doctor because I am useless behind a wheel when dilated, and, trust me, you would not want me driving down Eagle Road.

About ten minutes into my dilation, Dan started staring into my eyes and not in the romantic sense.

The flash on this picture about killed me.

"It's like an alien is taking over your body," he said, way too enthusiastically.

"Or it could be the devil, like in Penny Dreadful," and in my best Eva Green, I whispered, "What game shall we play?"

"That's so cool. I want my eyes dilated!" Dan exclaimed.

About that time, the waiting area started to take on an uncomfortable aura, and a salesperson sat himself beside me on the window side, tempting me with the prospect of new contacts and glasses. I couldn't even look up, the glare from the window was so bad. I stared at his lap the whole time while Dan stared at me like I was some sort of science experiment.

What will happen to the girl with big pupils when confronted with extreme sunlight?

Torture is not the best sales method. I didn't buy any new contacts or glasses.

Finally, when the salesperson finished his spiel, he said, "You're squinting a lot. I'll go shut the blinds."

You mean, you just now realized that I was staring at your crotch during your entire pitch?

After finding out that my floaters were still just my floaters and my bad eyesight was still just my bad eyesight, Dan drove me home. We closed the blinds and watched Game of Thrones.

During the second episode, I was able to read my watch again, which is always a sign to me that my eyes are going back to normal.

"How are my eyes now?" I asked Dan.

"You still look like an alien."

Helpful, Dan, very helpful.

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