Do you double-dog dare me??

Big important meetings with people from the company buying my company.  Big important decisions being made about things like world hunger procurement processes. 

Today, I was facilitating a meeting.  There was a fairly good size group of us - some from the technical side, a few consultants, the ones from my group, and then the ones from that other group.  (I can tell you’re impressed - such a brilliant group of people gathered to solve world hunger requisition approval routing issues!)

I was on my game - interjecting visionary thinking about world hunger categorization hierarchies when suddenly I feel something poking me.  Without missing a step, I realize it’s my fucking underwire from my fucking bra sticking out of my gorgeous wrap top.  Sticking. Out.

I’m a smooth operator - I kept talking with my elbow on the conference room table and my chin resting on my fist, thus positioning my arm to block the offending underwire.  This gave me time to decided what to do next.

Should I call for a 5 minute bio-break? 

Should I quietly slip out of the room and fix the problem?

Should I point to the opposite side of the room and scream “Look!  There!  A squirrel!” and then fix it while they are looking the other way?

Will they be mad when there is no squirrel?

None of these seemed quite the right thing to do.  But I would not be discouraged.  Swiftly, I stood at the table and walked to the back of the room where the flip chart was stationed.  While walking toward it, and with my back to the rest of the group, I deftly slid the offending wire out and bent it in my right hand, so it would not be seen or noticed.  I went to the flip chart and wrote “ISSUES” and underlined it twice.  Underneath, I made a bullet mark and wrote World Hunger.  Then I slipped the underwire into the marker tray on the flip chart stand and turned around and took my seat.

For the remainder of the day, I sat there with one boob drooping (and that’s not a reference to the consultant!), and my underwire bent up in the flip chart marker tray. 

You want to hang with me?  You have to be that smooth.

PS:  that part about writing ‘World Hunger’ on the flip chart might have been a slight exaggeration.  What I really wrote?   … ‘TPS Reports’

Oh, I know!  I know!  Pick me!  (Raises hand.)

Getting free tickets to take your children to see a show with some of their most beloved characters and music ON ICE!

Yes, my friends, it was High School Musical ON ICE!  Fill up your Zack Efron backpack with ear plugs and load the kiddies into the minivan! 

Is there anything that cannot be presented On Ice! these days?  I mean, really.  Does Disney have such market presence that they can just parade out anything on ice skates and make a killing on the merchandise?  I think the answer to that is, clearly, yes.  If they have any brains at all, they will exploit the hell out of this before the strange phenomenon ends.

I can see the billboards now:

Hannah Montana Starts Her Period ON ICE!

Zack and Cody Get Long Overdue Haircuts ON ICE!

Cory In the House Finds Out He’s Not Funny ON ICE!

Too bad Drake and Josh are on Nickelodeon, because I was really looking forward to:

Drake and Josh Make a JustLinda Sandwich ON ICE!

Next week I’m out of town all week, and I’ve been busy as a mo-fo so there have been few updates and lots of disturbing dreams for me lately.  I’m tired.  Deja vu, man, deja vu. 

Therefore, you can expect one more rather boring and anti-climatic production next week:

Linda’s Blog ON ICE!

Hopefully it will keep until I get back.  There is, however, always the chance that I will drink 21 cups of coffee in a hotel that has free wireless and I’ll come here so you fine people can talk me down from the Corporate Ledge. 

Stay tuned!

Oh, not the kind of dreamer you might now be imagining, not the kind the dreams of a kinder, gentler, war-free world where everyone goes to bed with a full tummy.  Not the kind who reflects upon the future and creates lofty goals to pursue that may or may not be achievable in reality.  Not that kind who gets caught up in her own thoughts about daffodils in bloom while staring out the window in the middle of an important meeting about business continuity plans.  Not those kinds of dreamers.

I am the kind of dreamer who wakes up most mornings with a conscious remembrance of the dream I just left behind.  Sometimes, like today, I wake up remembering two completely separate dreams.  I occasionally do that vivid dreaming thing where I am aware of the fact that I am dreaming while I am dreaming, and I can direct my dreams.  Vivid dreaming is cool.  I can’t predict when it will happen, and I perhaps only do it a few times a year, but I enjoy the heck out of it when I do it.

I think part of my dream landscape has to do with my constantly interrupted sleep patterns.  I had a sleep study last year and evidently I have frequent disturbances during the night.  I have mild apnea and many other unexplained sleep disturbances.  I think these things are partly the reason I have such sharp and vivid recall of my dreams.

Sometimes I dabble in trying to understand my dreams.  Who knows how accurate I am when I do it; it’s mostly just for fun.

This morning, I woke up with the most detailed, vivid recall of a dream that I have had in quite some time.  Even now, many hours after waking up, it’s still with me, sharp, fresh.  My friend referred to this as a dream hangover.  That’s what I have.

I did not, however, need to dabble in interpretation.  Before I even lifted my head off the pillow, I was crystal clear on the meaning of this dream.  It is a powerful, poignant dream, perhaps the most powerful dream I have ever had save the time my long-dead grandfather came to visit me in a dream.  (I’m still not certain that particular dream wasn’t somehow a cross over between this world and some other, the one where his spirit now lives, but I digress.)

I was on a boat.  It wasn’t a fancy boat; just a plain ol’ fishing boat.  I sat in the back of the boat.  My job was to make the boat go where it needed to go.  I didn’t have paddles or oars, there was no motor.  I don’t recall how I made the boat go, but clearly I must have done this as it was my responsibility.  The waters were choppy, sometimes dangerously so,  My job was a hard one.

On the front of the boat was a woman.  I couldn’t see her face as her back was to me.  She was on the boat doing a job too.  Her job involved her facing outward, away from me.  She didn’t want to do her job, of this I was aware.  In fact, in the dream I was aware that she had given up on her job many times before.  She just gave up and fell into the water and sunk down.  I knew, in my dream, that I was the one who dove in to save her all those times.  That was hard.  I had to dive into the water and find her and then drag her heavy and lifeless body back into the boat.  I had to convince her to do her job. 

In my dream, I could tell she was thinking about giving up and going into the water again.  I knew I should talk her out of it - tell her that she should soldier on.  I knew I should talk her down off the ledge.  I knew that if she went into the water again, I would be expected (by whom I wasn’t clear) to dive in and save her and get her back on her feet.  I really didn’t want to.  I was so tired of saving her.  So tired.

In my dream, I convinced myself that it was really her decision and it wasn’t my place to constantly be encouraging her to keep going, try again, stay strong.  I decided that if she went into the water, I would just let her go.  I would let her drown.

This was a relief to me, this decision.  I was relieved.

And so she did.  She just sort of collapsed into the water and sunk down.  I sat in my seat at the back of the boat and let her.  I did nothing.

The next thing I was aware of in this dream was being back in my regular life, away from the water.  All normal stuff, people, home, family, jobs, etc.  I kept waiting for someone to come ask me about the woman from the front of the boat.  I knew I would have to tell what I saw, what I witnessed.  I waited and waited and waited and no one asked.  It’s like they didn’t even know she was gone, as if she never existed.  I was perplexed and anxious and sad.  I felt guilty for my part in her disappearance.  How could no one notice she had sunk down into the water and disappeared?

I received a package in the mail and I opened the brown box.  Inside was a bottle that was labelled Fish Oil.  My dream persona knew exactly what this was meant to do.  I went immediately to the water and I poured it in.  This was a magic potion that was meant to bring her back, the woman from the front of my boat.  When I poured it in, the water swirled and there she was - I could see her in the water!  But just as quickly as she appeared, she was gone again.  She disintegrated right before my eyes.

I was angry.  The Fish Oil wasn’t magic.  I was naive for believing there was anyway to bring back the woman from the front of my boat - she was gone and I just had to accept it.  There are no magic potions. 

I sat at the side of the water and cried.  I cried because the woman was gone and I didn’t save her.  I cried because I didn’t prevent her demise.  I cried because I was too tired to fight for her and I just let her go.  I gave up on her and let her go. 

The woman on the front of the boat was me, the exterior of me - my body.  The me at the back of the boat was the essence of me, the inner me.

No need to analyze it, really.  The title of this post was my attempt at being clever, not that I find humor here at all. 

I have just laid bare my psyche to all of you.  I even understand myself better after this.  I just don’t know what to do about it.

“You can always make me laugh, even when I’m grumpy.  That’s what I love best about you.” I said.

“Want to know what I love best about you?” he replied.  “Your tits.”

See, Internet - see what I mean?  Good lord, he makes me laugh.  And you all know how much I like to laugh.  Laughter is the orgasm of the funny bone.  When he tickles mine just right, well, maybe I should have titled this post tat for tit, huh?

If, by chance, he does not survive, his death will have nothing to do with the viral or bacterial infection his body is fighting.

It’ll probably have way more to do with me covering him in used snot rags, pouring Robitussin over them, and tossing a match on the whole mess.  (Maybe then I wouldn’t hear anymore “I’m sooooo coooooold.”)

Please come visit me in prison.  Promise?

(I am sooooo not a nurturing person where grown ups are concerned.  Seriously.  I can’t summon up any empathy at all for whining.  I’m a bad, bad, very mean wife.  And I don’t even swallow.)