Sometimes I dream in Shakespeare. I think this is fascinating, and I blog about it every time. Happened again last night.
I’m at this party. It’s a surprise party, I think for my brother in law, which makes sense because we actually did have his 50th birthday party this weekend. So we’re in a strange house and I’m surrounded by lots of people, some I know, some I do not. There’s some sort of weird occurrence that I only half remember, where one of the small children wanders by singing a song that very definitely contains a very adult swear word. Again this actually makes sense in context because lately I’ve been engaged in several “why do people have issues with Dr. Seuss when the WAP song is ok to play on the radio?” arguments.
Anyway, here’s where it gets Shakespeare-ish and a bit weird. I find myself talking to this older couple with a heavy English accent. The wife is aghast that language like that could come out of such a small child. The husband then proceeds to declare that you don’t need to be using words like that when there are perfectly good euphemisms where everybody’s going to know what you mean. The euphemism he has in mind? Bubbleton. I told you it was weird. What bothers me most about that is that it’s clearly a noun and very difficult to use as a verb :). However, it also appears to be my brain messing with “Bridgerton,” a Netflix series known for the amount of sex it had, recently in the news because the start of season one isn’t coming back for season two.
At this point I decide to drop some Shakespeare into the conversation, because apparently I had recently made a blog post about exactly this topic and how Shakespeare used very common words with exactly such double entendre. I wish I knew in real life what I was referring to, because I’ve made no such post. Upon waking I’m guessing that maybe the Beatrice / Benedick “didn’t I dance with you?” exchange is close to what I was thinking of.
But here’s the thing, the older gentleman cuts me off and says, “I’m sorry, but could we leave Shakespeare out of it?” He then goes on to explain how the only example anybody ever wants to use in any argument is “Here’s what Shakespeare said,” and he’s not interested in having that discussion, and wanders off.
Left speechless, I wander back into the party where I complain to some other random stranger, “How was he supposed to know that Shakespeare’s my thing? It’s not like anybody ever wants to talk about computers.”
The stranger then tells me that he recently won the Turing Award, basically the highest honor in computer science. I ask him what for, he starts explaining it, and I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.
I like that in my dreams I’m still basically myself. See opportunity to talk Shakespeare? Go for it. Of course that also shows my insecurities plain as day – people who don’t care to listen to me ramble about Shakespeare, or not being able to keep up my end of the conversation. I’ve come a long way over the years, realizing that neither of these things is the end of the world, and can in fact make for an amusing story :). At least, I hope.