Of dreams and final exams

There it was again, that dream that I’ve had so often. It hasn’t come for quite some time, but last night it came again. I’m in college, but I haven’t been going to class—indeed, don’t know how to find the classroom for whatever subject is involved. Of course, I haven’t been studying or keeping up. The dream takes several forms—sometimes I’m taking a class I despise, like paleontology. Sometimes it’s a subject I’m fairly good at but would still need to do the assignments. It always ends with my assuring myself that I already have a college degree, and I don’t need these credits. I’m told it’s the almost the most common recurring dream for many adults.

Last night’s version was a bit different. I knew I had a doctorate in English, but I wanted to teach, so I was back in school taking philosophy, English and French. I had to spend all my time on a thick, dense philosophy book, so I ignored English and French, subjects I’ve always been good at. There are several flaws in this dream: I never wanted to teach, because while I’m pretty good at leading workshops, I’m lousy at regular classroom presentations. I’ve done enough teaching at the college level in my day to know that I don’t shine in the classroom. But I wouldn’t need to go back to school if I wanted to teach—I have the qualifications already. So where did this come from?

Psychologists are reluctant to offer firm theories about dream interpretation, but off the record some suggest that this dream is typical of type A personalities, people with strong ambition and drive who like to be in control, feel a sense of urgency, and value success (guilty!). The dream is likely to come in times of stress, when the dreamer is afraid of not meeting a certain goal (guilty again!).

I would tell you there’s no stress in my life, but that’s not true. I suspect I live in a state of perpetual stress. Right now, the fact that I’m not enjoying driving my car and dread outings where I must drive alone is stressing me, but I can push that to the back of my mind. More prominent, and I recognize it, is stress over my current work-in-progress, the history of a major Texas ranch and the family who owned it for 165 years.

I finished a first draft, getting all the facts, the chronology, the timeline in order. The result is a manuscript that is much shorter than my editor wants, and when I read it, all I could think was “vanilla, it’s plain vanilla.” I know, from working with this editor before, what I must do—I have to go back and interject my storytelling skills, insert fictional scenes and dialogue to make it lively and readable. Of course, that horrifies historians, so I’m caught betwixt and between. But I will go back and begin editing all over again. I just keep procrastinating, and it weighs on my mind. Right now, I’m doing the easy stuff—reading for typos and repetition (gosh, there’s a lot of that) and stylistic inconsistencies. But I’m going to have to buckle down and get serious.

It’s easy to procrastinate these days, what with the national turmoil. I would say I spent a large portion of the morning reading about the latest developments, the latest intrigue—and posting responses online. Last night, a friend who is a political activist said to me, “Keep your opinions coming. They’re valuable.” I hope she’s happy today, because so many things I read about trump and Barr and Giuliani cried out to be shared, information that any intelligent voter needs to know. We live in perilous times, and I think the most important factor is an informed public—some will scoff and cry “fake news,” but the tide has turned.

Tomorrow I’ll get serious about that book.

Procrastination—who me?

Procrastination: the action of delaying or postponing something. Yep, that’s me. I procrastinated for two days—and it’s so unlike me. I am usually compulsive about doing whatever needs to be done right away. I long ago took to heart the wisdom that you should only touch a piece of paper on your desk once—deal with it then.  Don’t put it in a stack and think, “I’ll worry about that later.” Never the words of Scarlet O’Hara, “I’ll think of it tomorrow,” or “After all,  tomorrow is another day.”

But those are all the things I did for two days. I spent too much time on Facebook and outlets with political news, reading every new opinion, pondering every new development; I spent lots of time paging through Bon Appetit and Southern Living, clipping recipes and planning elaborate dishes I may never cook.

Colin, my oldest child, was my biggest—and nicest—distraction. He arrived Monday in time for dinner, so I spent a good chunk of Monday fixing his favorite casserole. Tuesday morning, I fixed him breakfast—I had several choices for him. And he chose lox and cream cheese. Then we window-shopped Apple watches in the Apple store and had an early lunch at Carshon’s deli. He grew up eating there and now thinks no Fort Worth trip is complete unless he gets one of their Rebecca sandwiches.

By 12:30 Tuesday, he was off to an appointment and then headed home to Tomball. And I procrastinated some more—and napped.

This morning I got up with fire in my belly. I was going to work. And I did—900 words on the Alamo book, mostly about Alamo movies and particularly the classic one John Wayne made in 1959. I am learning such fascinating stuff with this project!

Tonight, a nice dinner with friends Betty and Jean at a restaurant called Righteous Foods, which I think is a terrible name for a restaurant. But the food is good. It’s all “righteous” foods, heavy on grains and vegetables and juices and smoothies. But also their version of a BLT (with a fried egg, of course), a hamburger, and several kinds of tacos. We split an order of salmon tacos, but they were so good I don’t think I’ll share next time. And churros for dessert. A wonderful meal.

Tonight I’ll procrastinate some more—and read. But tomorrow I’ll tackle the subject of books about the Alamo. Life is good. I hope for you too.

Procrastinating

Erma Bombeck, one of my heroines, once wrote that she'd rather scrub floors than look at a blank piece of paper in her typewriter. Poor Erma, I think she did all her writing before the age of the computer, but I fully understand and agree with her sentiment. I hate that blank screen.
In January, feeling big and bold, I wrote about 4500 words on a new novel--oh, good, only 64,500 to go! I was off to a gangbusters start on my 1,000 words-a-day goal. But then a manuscript I'd committed to edit came across my desk; then a manuscript of my own flew back and I dealt with edits, proofreading two more times (I am almost but not quite tired of the story--good thing I think it's worthwhile), and I got lost in the machinations of preparing to self-publish that one. And then the manuscript with first edits came back. My 4,500 words lay untouched.
Every weekend I said to myself, "This is the week I get back to that manuscript." But it didn't happen. I am fully capable of spending a morning with email, Facebook, the newspaper (skinny as it is these days), and yoga. Then, oops!, it's time for lunch with a friend. Then home for a bit more FB and it's time for a nap. I go pick Jacob up, we do homework, and who can revisit a novel in progress in the time left between five and six at night? And evenings, either I went out to dinner or I had that compelling book I was reading. Even tonight, I'm reading a book I've agreed to review.
But this morning I said to myself firmly, "Today is the day." I'm actually a pretty organized person and compulsive about what's on my desk, but when Jacob was here today I found myself making grocery lists, prowling through recipes, fiddling. I was procrastinating.
Tonight I finally read that 4500 words over, appalled at the typos--like different words, "next" for "night" and so on. I went through it and slowly began to feel myself drawn into the story. I wrote about 600 new words--not a great record for a day, but I figure it's a good start.  Tomorrow I'll get back into the groove--of course, there's the grocery store (that list, you know) and Jacob's last day of school before spring break. But next week, with school out, wash my dust...maybe!