The Color of My Sleep

    Someone in my dreams last night told me "you're good at math, and that's good, but maybe you should learn some emotions." And I thought that was a little harsh, dream Tina Fey. We had just gotten ingredients to make pancakes and then I stopped a runaway van. The comment seemed to be from nowhere.
     But maybe my dreams have a point. It's nice to be good at math. But learning emotions is important too. Also, I'm not that good at math, so I need emotions to fall back on.
     We do emotion drills in improv where you enter a scene with a defined emotion and you stick with it. Recently a fellow player did this drill; he acted like he was on drugs. "Were you playing that you were on Ecstasy?" "Yeah." "You know that's not an emotion, right? It's not like 'Happy, sad, on ecstasy.'" We all had a good laugh. Good take-away--being on drugs is not an emotion.
   

Weird Dreams

     I don't like to talk about dreams too much.  I understand they're just mixed up pieces of subconscious.  They may or may not have meaning; I haven't made a firm decision on that.  I remember a discussion I had with a film school professor--I used to just call her "my C-Word Adviser"--about how dreams didn't mean anything.  She had a high horse about how annoying it is when friends talk about dreams.  I understand being annoyed at dreams when they appear in movies and TV shows as a device intended to deceive, but when your friends are telling you about them, have a heart.  She probably didn't have any friends.  I'm probably not the only one who called her C-word.  (I imagine her other nicknames were "my c-word friend," "my c-word neighbor," "my c-word mother," and "my c-word bitch of an ex-wife.")
     I woke up this morning very disturbed by the dream I woke up from.  And I had actually woken up from the dream--I could feel it fading away because of noises in the apartment pulling me out of this weird deep sleep I had fallen into.  The dream was vivid and specific and real.  By real, I mean I recognized my dream self doing things I do in real life.  Late in the dream my sister was singing along with a song that was being played at the concert we were at.  I turned to her and asked "who sings this song.?"  This is a classic Nancy move that I picked up from our father, and dream-sister knew it.  He used to do this all the time to get us to stop singing along.  It's Melchert family rhetoric that we're all familiar with.
     When I finally did get up, I couldn't stop singing that song.  And the really crazy part about that--it's not a real song.  It was a song that my subconscious apparently made up.  Also, it was not a good song; it was very uninspiring and full of synthesizers. 
     I was shaken for the first hour after getting out of bed.  I made coffee and and the images of babies, blood, county concerts, sailors, and drunk driving kept going around my head.
      Earlier, I had a dream about working in oil fields, or something.  I knew where that came from--NPR was on the radio.  I manifested what they were saying; their words mixed in with the images of my subconscious.  The images were just as real, vivid, and specific, but they didn't bother me nearly as much as the weird graphic concert I was attending with my mother and my sister.  And I guess it's because I was more bothered by the fact that the drunk-driving babies and blood buckets are somewhere in my subconscious. 
     Drunk-driving babies and blood buckets being trapped in your subconscious are things that are good to talk with friends about.  That's why friends talk to you about dreams.  At the same time, I know there are some people who talk about their dreams too much.  I try really really hard not to do that.  I'm just saying that sometimes, when a friend says "I had a dream with you in it," or "I had a dream where I married a squirrel and then our squirrel children ate my face," don't be a c-word about it.  Just listen, nod, and say "interesting.  I'm sure it doesn't mean you're weird."  

Catharsis

     Labor Day is a great time for a catharsis.  It's also a great time to get pants-shitting drunk.  Getting pants-shitting drunk leads to a catharsis.  This may or may not be based on a real experience. 
     I had attempted a physical purge this weekend, and it didn't go great.  It's nearly impossible to just throw things away nowadays.  This has been an ongoing process, starting back in June: Easier Said Than Done.  I've reached the phase of separating things where I think "I'm not using this now, but I will need it later, and it's dumb to replace it just because it takes up space."  Things like fans, heaters, blankets, and blenders.  So these things stay in my storage unit.
     Then comes the really hard part- actually throwing things away.  It's not legal.  The storage unit doesn't have dumpsters.  At first this seems odd, but I've dealt with many storage units before, and it's a thing with them.  People take advantage and dump really large things in the dumpsters and it becomes a huge mess.  So storage unit facilities just stopped having dumpsters.
      You know what the chances are that you'll caught trying to throw away your entire childhood into a stranger's dumpster?  One-hundred percent.  As incognito as you think you're being, someone is always watching their dumpster and they will make you take your trash out after they watch you dump it in.  Especially if you've dumped boxes in, because the boxes are technically recyclable.  Digging things out of a dumpster is the opposite of purging.
       Covered in garbage and frustration, I made it back to my apartment and took a non-well-deserved nap.  The process is clearly getting to me, because I dreamt about the storage unit.  In the dream, the storage unit had flooded and someone had gone in to try to save my things.  Their process of doing this was to take everything out of the boxes and set it up in a make-shift living room. The storage unit in my dream had more things in it than I have in my real one.  Things that I've gotten rid of years ago appeared in this dream storage unit, with no end in sight.  I'm now worried that when I go back , things that were thrown away will rematerialize.
      I put a pin in the physical purging for the rest of the weekend, and moved on to the emotional purging.  That wasn't really my intent, but red wine and birthday cake have magical powers.  I catharsised all over my (belated) birthday feast.  I got to give a few speeches and quote Hope Floats, though I was told later it was actually from the Bible.  Peshaw.  Hope Floats is a better reference.  "My cup runneth over."  I have wonderful friends and family and I don't have any reason to be bitter anymore.  Ah, catharsis.
     The post-catharsis headache was something else entirely.  Luckily I had left over birthday cake to get me through it.  Also, in case you're concerned, pants-shitting drunk is just an expression.  This time. 

Pesky Ambitions

     I am quite pleased that today is Friday.  I was planning out the weekend and it turns out, I don't have much on the agenda.  I was going to clean out my storage unit, but it's supposed to be oppressive again, so I'll skip sitting in a hot metal box going through boxes of the past. 
      "Hm, wow.  What should I do?  A movie marathon?  Watch tons of TV?  Read a book?  Gosh.  The world is my oyster, I guess.  Maybe I'll take a nap."  And then I remembered- I have ambitions!  I have goals!  I have a list of things I want to be when I grow up.  Maybe, just maybe I should work on that.  I should write a few jokes, revisit an old script that needs some work, and write a few sketches.  At a minimum.  Man oh man, these ambitions really get in the way of lazy weekends. 

It Only Counts if Others See It

     Sometimes I'm one of those douchehats who take up a puffy chair or a table for hours at Starbucks while writing.  I don't do it often, but sometimes I need the change of pace and the pressure of sitting at a table with my computer can help my motivation.  If I'm having a particularly "ooh, shiny things are everywhere" day, heading some where like Starbucks can help focus that energy.  I don't know enough people in the area to be interrupted by people coming in and my fear of losing my seat and things being stolen keeps my ass in that chair.  One of the best pieces of advice I received about being a writer is "the writer stays in the room."
     The writer stays in the room, or in the coffee shop, ass in chair, in front of her computer, putting fingers to keys and words to page.  It's not all brilliant and it needn't be.  I try to write comedy, and it's not all funny.  But sometimes I amaze even myself how I can pull one funny sentence from pages and pages of blubbering idiocy about an otherwise serious topic.  Then I use that one funny sentence to build on.  I imagine journaling is scoffed at in literary or professional writing circles and because of that, I would never let anyone read my journal.  I bet most people do it though.  They might not admit it, but come on, it's part of the process.  If your process is to just put only perfect thoughts on the page, then eff you.  And teach me how!
     The part I don't like about others seeing me write is I feel a need to justify that what I'm doing is important.  I was out of the house for several hours last night and when I returned my roommate nonchalantly confirmed that I was at Starbucks.  Currently, my roommate is a subletter who is a social worker.  She is subletting from my roommate who is an honest to goodness writer; he is in the process of writing a book with a publisher and the whole nine.  Our walls are jam packed with books on foreign policy, politics, history, and the great things that plague the world and the human condition.  These are people who are living for the greater good, or are at least conscious of it.  When I walked in, my current subletter roommate had her computer open on her lap in the midst of work.  She kindly asked what I was working on.  I told her a sketch and then further explained sketch comedy.  She had spent five hours at the hospital earlier that day with a client.  I don't know what the client was at the hospital for but I bet it wasn't just to pick up some candy or because she loves how MRIs make her feel.  Roommate then had to bring work home with her.  I sat at Starbucks for 2 hours making lists of mythical creatures, parliament positions, and prostitute synonyms.  By the way, I really hope the Zombie Libertine is a huge hit.
     I have to remind myself of a few cliches every once in a while: to each their own, it takes all kinds, laughter is the best medicine.  If I wanted to be a doctor, I would have gone to medical school.  I don't, so I didn't.  I want to be a comedy writer, so naturally I went to engineering college, nuclear power school, and film school.  Now I just sit and wait for my brilliance to be discovered.  Which brings me back to my first point-  People can't see me writing when I'm inside my house.  I need to be out in public with the other people.  The only way for people to know I'm a writer is for them to see me writing.  Usually at a Starbucks.

What Dreams May Come Part II

     Sometimes I dream that I have woken up, gotten out of bed, and gotten ready for work.  I take a shower, I get dressed, and I make coffee.  I have a wonderful morning.  The idea sinks pretty far into my brain.  And then the alarm goes off,  I'm startled awake, my eyes pop open, and I reale I am still in bed, having probably slept in, and there is no coffee.  That is depressing. 
     It also seems to be a sneaky, pointless dream.  When I start to think about how powerful our subconsciouses are and what mysteries can exist within dreams, I start to believe mine is making fun of me.  It's taunting me.  It's not even taking bits from the past and weaving them into my morning experience.  It's not giving me a different life, with maybe a husband and kids and a large ranch somewhere in the middle of the country.  Or a studio apartment in NYC where I'm a bit poor but living my dream.  It's my exact house.  I'm in my exact pajamas.  I'm doing things as they are normally done.  Hell, even the dishes in the sink are the same ones that were there the night before.  It's just being mean.  My subconscious wants to show me how much better mornings would be if I woke up, but not enough to just wake me the hell up.
     This is also a bit of a recurring dream, except that it's not exactly the same each time.  The idea is the same though- I've gotten up and started my day.  But the details are different, because they seem to actually reflect the state of things at the time.  The season is correct, the city I'm in is correct; all of the details are in their place.  It's like I've been incepted with the idea of being a morning person.  But then the dream never comes true, because I don't wake up in time.  Dun-dun-dun. 

The Blank Page Is Intimidating

     Even in blogger, the blinking cursor and blank white space taunt me.  Often what works for me is to just get started, regardless of what it is.  Just get a few lines typed out, and when the page isn't blank, it isn't so scary anymore.  This is why I don't let people read my outlines, or worse yet, the journal entries that lead up to the idea for the outlines.  They are riddled with ridiculous non sequiturs, sentence fragments, and lists of foods I want to eat.
     And now that that's out of the way, I can talk about what I really wanted to talk about!  It's a little personal, and writing it out makes me feel a little vulnerable, but I'm going for it anyway.  I finished writing the first draft of my pilot.  I acknowledge it's only the first draft, and there is work still to be done, but writing "END OF SHOW" at the end felt good.  And then I drift off the place of fantasy and dreams and I think someday, and someday soon, this'll get picked up.  Why wouldn't it?  This script is meant to be realized on television, and I am meant to be its show runner.   There may be a few obstacles, but they are insignificant.   Most of them can be solved my moving.  I let myself steep in that fantasy land for a while because if I believe in it, it has a greater chance of coming true.
     Yesterday, my package from Amazon arrived- Parks and Recreation Season 2, Modern Family Season 1, 30 Rock Season 4, and the 30 Rock Soundtrack (Collector's Edition).  Happy Chanukah to me!   I tore open that box with the fervor of a five year old.  I read the 30 Rock Soundtrack liner notes book from cover to cover and immediately put it in my computer.  I watched the special features for both Modern Family and Parks&Rec, including the Season Three sneak peek.

I'm so excited for season three. I want a copy of the Ron Swanson Pyramid. I'll post it on my wall, and use to to become a perfect human.

      This actually took a little longer than I expected, but it was totally worth it. Laundry can always be put off another day.  I put on an episode of Arrested Development while getting ready for bed, and then to safely take me to dream land, I listened to, yes, the 30 Rock Soundtrack.
     I'm not necessarily a hard core dreamologist (I made that up, because I don't know what it would be called), but I do understand that dreams are formed from what is in one's subconscious.  Sometimes, the subconscious isn't as far down there as one might have thought.  I had the most wonderful dream where I met Tina Fey, somehow at her house, where she seemed to be expecting me to be there, yet I was not expecting her.  There was a multi-layered surprise that my friends (or apparently mutual friends?) had set up, and I ended up under dressed for attending the Oscars with Tina Fey, but we had become fast friends when I made her a cake.  I also tripped over her, but she was very gracious about it, assuming partial blame for being in the way, and asked to read my script.  About the time my head was going to explode in the dream, something woke me up.  I wanted so very badly to stay in that dream.  And again, I don't usually put a lot of credence in my dreams, but this one I want  to hold onto forever.  Maybe this time, this one means something.