Dreams of inconvenience
Last night was a long night. Adam was especially hard to get down and once down he did not stay down. Sometimes it seems he doesn’t want to sleep because he’s able to intuit that there’s more interesting stuff to do now that he’s not trapped in a hot womb with a foot in his mouth. But sometimes he seems to refuse to sleep out of plain cussedness, on principle. Last night was such a night. While Magda was doing all the dealing with him, my sleep was interrupted even when he wasn’t crying or howling. There was one period, from about 4.30 to 5.00, when he was audibly awake but not screaming; this is rare, and he might as well have been crying because we both lay there on edge like we were in Anne Frank’s annex, just waiting.
The evening prior to bedtime was shortened because I had gone to a funeral late in the overcast afternoon.
There was also the small issue of my bowels waking me up in the wee hours, but the less said about that the better.
So this was the context in which I dreamt. I had many dreams, one of those nights of dreams streaming into and out of one another with no regard for logic or appropriacy. I can remember only three dreams distinctly but they were linked in this ethereal way. In chronological order I dreamt:
- George W. Bush decides to reinstate the old tradition that the president personally telephones every U.S. soldier on their birthday. I am back in the army, and George W. Bush phones me. Actually, the guy before me hands me the pay phone, so our conversation gets off on the wrong foot because George W. Bush overheard what we were saying and didn’t think it was very “approperate”. We are on some non-descript military installation, perhaps Camp Doha, Kuwait or Fort Stewart, Georgia. So I’m on the phone with a nettled George W. Bush. He is very critical and condescending, not what you’d expect for birthday congratulations at all. He criticizes my use of commas on isoglossia.com! I tell him, quite respectfully, “Mr. President, I believe the comma is overrated as a punctuation mark.” (This by the way is true). It continues in this vein. I can hear the smirk through the line. While we are talking I wonder if I will be able to write about this or if it will lose me my job, like that girl at dooce.com. There is some discussion of my poor math skills as evidenced by my flubbing a simple sum question when I was a contestant on “The Weakest Link” on BBC Prime®, but TOUCHÉ, Monsieur President, I believe you made a similar gaffe when you appeared on the show.
- A friend and I have stolen a car and murdered a guy. We decided to destroy the car and dispose of the body, but didn’t do a very good job of it and it is probably only a matter of time before the authorities catch up with us, just like Chrissie, Sam, and Zoe, who have killed Den and buried his body in the cellar of the Queen Vic on “Eastenders” on BBC Prime®.
- I have a key ring that is far too overloaded with useless keys and you can never find the one you need.
The only conclusions I can draw from this kind of subconscious activity are:
- I am watching far too much BBC Prime® and reading too much dooce;
- Adam needs to learn to sleep better, and soon;
- I should think about getting rid of some keys.
