I dreamed a dream

I woke up at about 4:30 this morning with just one thought: "Hey!  I don't even HAVE a basement!"  This was such an enormous comfort that I fell immediately back to sleep for an hour or so; quite unusual, because a 4:30 wake-up usually means that I'm up for the day.

Some backtracking: I had awakened from a dreadfully vivid and realistic dream about a waterbug infestation in my basement.  They were everywhere, and I was paralyzed by indecision about what to do about them.  Panic and just refuse to ever enter the basement again? No, because in this dream, the kitchen happened to be in the (nonexistent) basement (and this made the infestation that much more horrible.)  Call an exterminator? Well yes, because I wanted to be rid of the bugs, but no, because I was afraid of the pesticides and I was embarrassed to invite an exterminator into my squalid, crawling home.  So I spent the entire dream entering the basement over and over, closing my eyes and turning on the light, and then opening my eyes always a moment too early to avoid the sight of the bugs scurrying for the cover of darkness.

(I realize now that this is at least my third post about bugs or insects, and readers might make the mistaken assumption that I have a particular interest in or particular fear of bugs.  Neither is true.  I have no interest in any bug or insect except to react as necessary to get them out of my way; and although I'm certainly not fond of any form of insect or bug life, I'm also not really that afraid of them.  I have more weird phobias than the DSM-IV even knows about, but I'm pretty bug-neutral.)

So, back to the dream.  My house, as I mentioned, was both vermin-infested and utterly wretched, to the point at which I'd have been ashamed to have anyone see it.  This is far from the case in actual real life.  My house is simple and not especially luxurious, but it's quite clean and pleasant.   Anyone's welcome to visit, any time.  Mi casa es su casa.  I also don't have any particular fear of or aversion to pesticides (although the smell of Raid nauseates me) so I don't know why my dreaming self was so afraid of the exterminator.

One thing about the person in the dream that I did recognize, all too clearly, was her panicked inability to make a decision and take action. I am often paralyzed by indecision about the most minor everyday things.  Decisions about what to wear, what to cook for dinner, what to do during the thirty minutes before I have to pick a kid up from school or an activity can and often do send me into a hair-pulling tailspin of anxiety.

Anyway, I woke up and have had a fairly productive day, more so than average.  I'm even less interested in dream analysis than I am in bugs, but perhaps that one served as a cautionary tale because I dithered a bit less than I usually do today.  Even a waterbug has its place, and they're welcome to settle in my imaginary basement.  Mi casa es su casa.

I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name

Dear Claire,

We are potstickers.  Aptly named, we stick to pots.  Show us a pot, and we'll stick to it with a tenacity that would put a bulldog with a bone to shame. None of us even finished elementary school, let alone a university degree in the English language, but we're smart enough to know what something called a "POT-STICKER"  plans to do. 

Here's the thing:  We didn't deceive you.  We didn't try to conceal our true nature.  With our name, we made our intentions quite clear.  So when you cook a bunch of us and then leave us in a big bowl while you go off to chop vegetables, it seems rather foolish (one might even say "asinine" or "idiotic") that you would then react with shocked and outraged chagrin when you find that we have, in fact, stuck to the pot.  The name is not symbolic in any way; nor is it an ironic, postmodern challenge to would-be deconstructionists.  Honestly, we are just not that sophisticated.  The name "potsticker" was meant to be interpreted in the most literal sense.  "Potsticker" = "That which sticks to the pot".

We apologize for any misunderstanding.  In future dealings with us, do try to remember that when confronted with a pot, any pot, we will stick to it with single-minded determination.  Barnacles will be scraped off the hull of a shipwreck more easily than we will be separated from the pot to which we stick.  It's called a raison d'etre.  Look it up, genius.

Yours sincerely,
The Potstickers
(we stick to pots)

Version control

There's this thing, see, called NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month.  It starts on November 1 each year; the idea is that you should commit to writing every day during the month of November, and by the end of the month, you should have a 50,000-word novel, give or take.

November, first of all, is just a hideous month in which to try to do anything major.  I suppose that writing a book would fall under the heading of "Something Major."  It also falls under the headings of "What the Hell Am I Thinking?" "I Need My Damn Head Examined," and "Bad Ideas: Part Ten Million"  Since, however, easily half of the things that I have done in my life also fall under all these last three headings, I won't be deterred.  What could go wrong?

Perhaps, if you're reading this, you have looked at a calendar and correctly observed that it's not November just yet.  In un-typical fashion, I'm thinking ahead.   I started this project last year, on November 1, and ended up with many pages of draft material that in no way form anything resembling a novel, but which contain quite a few salvageable bits and pieces that I can work into this  year's magnum opus.  Silver linings are everywhere, and while I'm almost entirely lacking in focus and concentration, I do possess better-than-average organizational skills and an excellent memory.  So I can find, pretty quickly, the pages of dialogue and the street scene descriptions from early novel chapters from last year, and part of a story that I wrote for my last class at UMUC, all in different folders, each with several individual versions, and copy, paste, and rework the parts that will be useful for this latest attempt. 

Meanwhile, a POV change from first-person to semi-omniscient third-person has revolutionized the whole thing, and so now, I might have not only snappy dialogue, but an actual story, in which things actually happen.  If not, then at least I'll get to re-read some funny things that I wrote last year.  I should be ashamed of this, but I laugh uproariously at my own jokes.  I might or might not have a novel by the end of next month, but at least I'll be entertained by my funny funny self.  I really might need my head examined.