Oh no. Here we go again: The recurring phone nightmare.
I used to have what I guess are anxiety dreams in which I absolutely had to make a phone call. It was always spurred by impending doom of some unspecific kind. Always it was me desperately dialing for help or to provide warning.
Back in the beginning the dreams involved rotary phones, sometimes coin-operated. I might not have enough coins, or the coins refused to go into the slot because they were the wrong kind, or slipped through my fumbling fingers.
More often, though, the dreams were about the act of dialing: Inserting my shaking fingertip into the proper space, moving my hand carefully clockwise to the stop, releasing and waiting till the dial rotated back to neutral — only to dial the last digit wrong. I’d have to start all over again, now with even more pressure to succeed — and I’d fail again.
And again.
Then came touch-tone phones. It didn’t matter. I would be simply unable to push the right button. I’d concentrate, I’d focus, and yet my finger would press the wrong button.
I’d have to start all over from the beginning. It was always a long distance call, so there were many numbers, many chances to screw up. And screw up I would. Until I stopped having the dreams.
Digital dialing!
One thing I’ve loved about the digital era has been Undo. If only all of life came with Undo. Computers and now cell phones offer gazillions of apps and almost all of them have Undo functions.
And merciful gods, my cell’s phone app has Undo! There’s a little X and if I touch the wrong number I just touch that X and it Undoes the error. So simple even an idiot dreamer can get the number right.
And yes, I can. In fact, I know so deeply in my psyche that I can dial the number correctly that I don’t have dialing-wrong dreams anymore. You’d think that would mean that my phone nightmares would go away.
But no.
Last night I dreamed I couldn’t find my cell phone. I was so agitated that I woke up, and having done so I realized it wasn’t the first time I’d had a lost cell phone dream. In them I know it’s around somewhere — but where? I know it will turn up — but when? In the dreams I don’t have the phone right now and I can’t make the call.
What call? My memory of the phone dreams are always vague. I’m generally in a house with many rooms connected by M.C. Escher-like stairs (or like the stairs in the Goblin King’s castle in the movie Labyrinth — except with furniture). Blind ends, wrong turns, backtracking, and always the pressing need to be somewhere, along with a nebulous nagging horror raising the hackles at the back of my neck.
Last night I didn’t even want to make a phone call – I just needed to find that damn phone before… I’m not sure what.
What am I supposed to do?
I like to record my dreams in my journal but I’m not that interested in analyzing them. The dreams never have been about phone calls anyway, they’re just reverberations of the quite familiar anxieties and pressures of daily life. Dreams or daily life — I have no control over most of what goes on around me. Nobody does.
The take-away, I’m pretty sure, is that it would be a good idea for me to just deal with what I can and stop worrying about the rest.
Or maybe it’s something entirely different. Maybe it’s that if I ever managed to make that call, whoever answered might be way scarier than the monster breathing down my neck.
#amwriting, #journal, #dreams, #DavidBowie, #Labyrinth
Last April I worked on a rough draft of what I hoped would be a novel that became a novelette that then changed its mind and became a novella… or at least that’s where it is now. Dragon/Mage is just over 51,000 words and unfinished, so maybe it’ll grow up to be a real novel someday.
The so-called press was a wood clamp and two vise-grip pliers that applied pressure on window shims (approximately 1″ wide x 12″ long thin strips of wood). (Note to self: research DIY book presses and make that my next project. Or pretty soon. At least before I make my next book, whenever that might be.)
The glue dried in no time at all. When I removed it from the “book press” I started giggling. It actually looked something like a real book! 
I very carefully cut the covers. I swear those were perfect right-angled corners when I measured, but somehow… never mind. Then I carefully measured and cut the fabric. I swear…
I gotta tell you, when I wasn’t cursing, I was giggling as I made this book. I knew the end project was kind of ugly, I knew the manuscript was not complete — but I didn’t care. The making was the joy for me. I can create a complete and polished looking book someday if I want to — but there will never be another first book that I ever made.
It had to happen, of course. The honeymoon always ends. Life moves on and the fresh new relationship gradually transforms into an old familiar one. Allowances for past traumas, habits, and reactions give way to impatience with behaviors based on the past. It’s here and now — let’s get on with it, it feels like. At least for me. 
Rosie barked today. Seriously barked, not just a passing woof. A neighbor who had been moving some dirt with his tractor right outside the house was walking around on foot, assessing what he’d done and what he needed to do next. He came close to the back door and for some reason Rosie didn’t like that at all. 
JUST KIDDING! No need for bail!
I’m flyin’ high and I cannot lie — I finally made a loaf of sourdough bread that not only tastes good, but is actually sour! It’s a kind of miracle!
I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream when I came home the other day and found this. Rosie had torn open a bag of plastic bags that was headed for recycling. They were everywhere.
