the dreams remain the same

Rainn Wilson ate my porkchop. I put it on a plate and turned around to get something from the cabinet and when I turned back it was gone, plate and all.  The alarm went off when I was in the midst of pulling plates out of the cabinet and smashing them on the floor in frustration.

I've noticed nothing changes.  My dreams all end in frustration. My waking life is all about anxiety and procrastination. Pitiful.

Back to the blog

Deepak Chopra writes that worrying is learned, so it can be unlearned.  He understands that worriers think they are being vigilant and protecting themselves and those around them. But, he says, it pushes people away.  I know that I couldn't stand having a conversation with my mother because it always contained dire warnings and grave expectations. This is something I wish I'd had the opportunity to quote to her: You aren't improving anyone else's life by worrying about them. To improve their lives, be supportive and appreciative. I once asked her why she was so unsupportive and she asked me what support was.  I was aghast and didn't know how to answer.

So I'm worrying about my life and my health and my future.  I have an opportunity to be a multimedia journalist and I'm afraid that I'm going to screw it up, so I'm having a lot of trouble starting.  What better way to screw up a new job than not to do it. Ok, I started. Don't know what I'm doing but I'm really hoping to figure it out and get better at it.

Health:  Diabetes!  Who'da thought.  The only disease I haven't been afraid of bit me right in the belly.  If it hadn't been for my summer ice cream binge I might never have been pushed over the top to where I had to take myself into to doc's for testing.  God forbid one of my high glucose blood tests in the last few years would have inspired the MDs to tell me I needed to watch my diet or be on medication.  WTF is with these people nowadays?  Do you feel like your doc knows who you are or cares about your health.  I got yelled for bringing too many questions to what is limited to a 15 minute visit.  And I'm on a PPO!!!! Anyway, now I'm a vigilant eater and continually watching the clock for mealtimes and counting allowable snacks.  Anyone for celery and salsa?

My future:  well I'm a middle aged unemployed woman with just a few marketable skills, up from none.  I did spend the last year taking college and professional classes.  I don't know how I did it.  Since classes ended for the summer all I've wanted to do is sleep and watch tv. Where do the rest of you get your high energy and ambition?  I rarely get bored just sitting at home.  Probably a function of being laid up a few times for months at a time. I've become a professional patient.

Well, unknown readers,  I'm gearing up to make this blog a regular activity.  A writer must write.

The Dreams, The Dreams

It's happening again.  I keep dreaming of being pursued by murderers.  And it's not just me. The whole civilization is in danger.  Guns, cell phones, shit on everything.  Running, running, trying to escape and being so close to those who want to murder me.  School is over for the semester.  Maybe it's life that's freaking me out.  I've been breaking out in hives for weeks.  When I graduated college the first time I had itchy hives between my fingers.  

I dreamed about Ruta Lee

I don't know how but she was the star of Act One of  a dream which devolved to the usual setting.  House with inadequate doors.  Murderers trying to get in.  It was not my house.  There were a couple of young white actresses with no work but lovely clothes, and a sort of family of African American folks.  Thugs were trying to bang down the doors, which were security gates, so you could see through and around them. The young men inside were doing their best to hold off the bad guys.  I tried to play a video cassette because it had an old program on it that I'd saved which I thought would be of interest to the folks in the house.   But it got eaten by the machine. I tried to reel in the crunched tape but in the end it was torn.   I thought I could ask Bill to fix it until I realized I don't see Bill anymore.

The couple and I left for a kind of hiking outing but got lost in the park.  I asked a stranger for directions and that frightened the other two because we really couldn't trust anyone.  We fled to mother's  house.  I think she was Roseanne Barr.  And there the police came and told us all the bad guys had been captured.  But I was still frightened by the jeering girls outside who left us a message that could be seen from above.  They spelled out on the ground using rags or something the location of a woman involved. Police, who couldn't see the message, asked if we wanted her prosecuted too.  I said yes but the family admonished me to  be compassionate.    Later in the car, the African American wife asked me to do less.  I said I wanted to participate.  Too often I sit back and allow myself to be served.  I wanted to do more.  She told me I did too much, implying I create problems,  and I should hang back.

 THE END

Last night in class, my final project blog was a flop. I've deleted it.   But I got reminded of my mission for this blog and my life.  That is to move forward and stay positive.   Remember, attitude is a choice.  Feeling follows thought.

TV series I've recorded on VHS and never watched but will keep forever

I'm always running four vcr's.  This is a partial list: Every episode of West Wing after the first one.  Every episode of Lost after the first or second season.  Battlestar Galactica.  Torchwood.  Doctor Who.  The third season of Mad Men though I never watched the first two.  Season one of Dexter when it was on CBS.  The last season of the Chris Isaak Show.  Johnny Staccato. Jericho.  Life on Mars (American and British). Ashes to Ashes, the sequel. The Inside Room. The 4400.  The Nine. EZ Streets. 30 Days. 60 Minutes. Every PBS documentary about Jews, the Bible, about 50% of their docs on Iraq and Afghanistan. Independent Lens. Have Gun Will Travel which I dubbed from the Time Life Series subscription before returning the originals.  Vanished.  Kidnapped.  Pasadena.

Shows I've watched but keep in the archive: Grounded for Life, Law and Order Criminal Intent, Agatha Christie's Poirot, Masterpiece Mystery most shows,  The Ben Stiller Show, The 90's, TV Nation and The Awful Truth, Cadfael Mysteries.  Brooklyn Bridge I have on Betacam from taping it at work.

DVD sets I owned but have never opened:  Wonderfalls, I Claudius, The Prisoner, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Hercule Poirot, Nowhere Man. Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons 1 and 2.

This doesn't even touch the classic movies I got from taping TCM and AMC around the clock for the first couple of years I had cable.  Every movie Barbara Stanwyck was in, Bette Davis, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Bogey and Bacall.  Joan Blondell, Ann Sothern.  (can you tell them apart?) Doris Day. Rock Hudson. Betty Hutton.   I stopped cataloging years ago when I got up over 400.   I love that Robert Osborne even though he believed Mama Cass died from choking on a ham sandwich.

There are thousands of video cassettes here of all formats and sizes  and dozens of dvd's.  How can I ever move house?

Are you kidding me?

My teacher thinks I'm a writer: Funny Gal will just come up with something.  Are you kidding me?  I'm lazy and shallow and just want to watch tv.  I wish I was David Rakoff, though he says for him writing is like pulling teeth... through his penis.  The man has a degree from Columbia.  I spent my college years fighting the man, which meant going to teach-ins and rallies or getting high and hanging out on the quad.  I majored in TV for chrissakes!

However, I think I'm beginning to  hear the voice.  The voice tells me to get serious about writing.  People have been telling me for years I should be writing (or doing stand-up.  Come On!)  I always said, "Writers write.  If I was supposed to be writing I'd be doing it."  Now I want to do it.

Oh yeah, last night someone told me I should be teaching at UCLA. I said, "Teaching what?" and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Anything."  I do not know where that came from.

oh my gawd!

Every day I've had the intention to wake up earlier and earlier because Wednesday I have to get to Burbank at 9 a.m. for an all day class, nine hours, followed by a three-hour  meeting in Hollywood. I want to be a grown up.  I want to be a professional.  But 27 years of staying up all night and sleeping till the afternoon is apparently a hard habit to break.

I was in the bed, lights out, by 1:30, half drugged.  By 3 my brain was still tumeling so I took the other half of the pill.  Success!  I was up at 9:15! ...and down again by 9:20.  I must have turned off the high expectation alarm last night.  The next time I woke it was 1:50 PM!

Who needs to travel when I have dreams like mine?  Maybe it was the generic Xanax, but the people have become less threatening and I am not as left out.  Today, there was a HUGE high school reunion at a hotel/my house. As usual, for some reason I was not participating in the socializing and after everyone left I was worried about whether the costs were covered. People seemed to be reassuring me not to worry about it.

Scene change, someone helped me find some small item that was missing (instead of my having to scream and cry in frustration like I usually do) and then, at a cafe, a few other people were concerned with their own thing (something about an audio level, and "You're Jewish?" not even directed at me).  I was cool.  Why wake up from that?

I'll tell you why! I have a list. A color-coded "ordered list," in project management parlance.  Six major tasks that I wanted to complete this weekend, which leaves only today.  And the only things that were complete are not on the list!  I gotta go...