Dream Job aka... The job I had in my dream

It seems I keep writing about my dreams, but since I am doing my writing in the early morning, that’s what’s on my mind. I’m also trying harder to remember my dreams as I would like to have a lucid one. I kept a journal in college for a short period of time in an effort to do this. I began remembering everything, up to several dreams a night. I still remember some of them as if they were real memories. I eventually had to stop to get some actual rest as it started to get out of hand, but I am interested in going back to that place. I have always been interested in Surrealism and the use of dreams and dream images for use in art. I would like to get back to making more art, thus….. dreams.

My dream last night wasn’t a long one. I can tell you where some of the images come from and why they are there, but what’s most interesting to me is the feeling I had during and after the dream.

In the dream, the earliest part of it I can remember, I had just gotten a job. It was at an advertising agency. I was in our first meeting and I think I had been hired a few minutes before that. I remember thinking I hadn’t even quit my other part time job yet or something to that effect. I think I was approaching this job from a part-time point of view, but the boss-man thought I was full time. That will come into play later.

The meeting was is a relatively small room. There were about 12 people in there in black office swivel chairs around a cheap wooden office table. The chairs weren’t those big comfortable ones. They are the low-backed ones with cloth covers, not leather or even fake leather. But they were comfortable, like they were brand new. It was a little cramped in there… very little room between the wall and chairs. Everyone was wearing very dark business clothing. It seemed even darker in the bright white walls and fluorescent lights. Everyone was in pairs or small groups they would work together on accounts in. The woman I was with was blond with her hair pulled up and wearing a black sport coat jacket over a black blouse. Upon reflection after the dream, she looked just like the main lady lawyer from Better Call Saul.

The boss guy started going over the accounts we needed to figure out and work on. This part was exciting for me. I was excited about which account we would get and what we would do with it. I have very fleeting images in my head of some of the ideas I had and sketched out. Something to do with black silhouettes on white backgrounds and mixed up… hard to explain the image, although I believe a rubber duck silhouette was in it. The boss went over schedules and calendars and some timelines as we began to wrap up the meeting. I remember at one point we had to start over as we had completely forgotten about Christmas. I turned and asked my partner in the account what I should work on over the weekend to get ready. I was excited and was hoping she would say to list some ideas, or sketch, or something. She said not to worry about it and that she would handle it. She seemed a little miffed and upset. I thought maybe it was getting paired with me, a newbie. She left abruptly without saying anything to me.

I realized at the end of the meeting that I had to talk to the boss about my hours and that I was really just looking for part time. Then I had the thought that maybe I should quit my teaching job and just start this full time. I actually went through what that scenario would look like and entail. In my dream it gave me a very excited and happy feeling. I woke up with that.

I’ve always been interested in advertising. I originally thought about going to school for it. It’s not that I want to be manipulative of people. It’s that I really enjoy creative problem solving. It combines everything I love doing…. Art, design, visual and mental puzzles, figuring people out, etc. There was a show that used to be on after Mad Men called Ad Men. It was two ad agencies battling over a client by pitching their best ideas and campaigns to them. I loved that show. I really enjoyed watching the process. What I found most interesting about my dream was the feeling I had in it that carried over to me being awake. I was really happy and excited about the job. I was looking forward to working. I actually looked up jobs in the shower on my phone just to see. I haven’t felt that excited about a job or work in many years. I suppose I have some reflecting and thinking to do.

Vivid Dream

I actually got to get in some decent sleep last night, something hard to come by this week. Because of this I was able to have a pretty weird but mostly entertaining dream.

The first thing I can remember from the dream was that my neighbor, Paul, and my brother, Blake, and I were at some large outdoor market. It looked like a big food court, but it was outside. It was almost like being at some food festival or something, but it seemed to be a permanent structure. It was dusk and the lights were turning on. The setting reminded me of some scene from a Neil Gaiman book or a Jack Vance story. To the left was some establishment that seemed like mix between a Harley Davidson rally, and old-timey saloon, and a modern country western bar. People were hanging out, drinking, talking. It took up a pretty large area. There were some dudes to our right with their shirts off practicing line dancing as if they were about to take the stage for a show or something. I questioned what we were doing and if we had happened upon a strip club or something. We decided to investigate and realized it was a "professional" barber shop. We kept tossing out that word, "professional", as if it meant something more or needed to be capitalized. We finally made out way to that back where the haircuts were happening. There were a bunch of chairs and guy cutting other guys’ hair quickly and efficiently while people watched and cheered and drank. We decided to get some trims, although Paul has no hair. We didn't quite have enough cash (and they only took cash), we realized, but (apparently) its common practice for the barbers to take a little bit less money if you pay them under the table in cash. All Paul had was a check. We decided to pitch in all our cash and checks to try to get haircuts. Paul struck up a conversation with one of the barbers by a long, beige counter, under a string of yellow lights, at the front of a huge white tent lit up by lanterns.  He was an older Russian man. Paul signed over his check to him, which was a little oversized and was green with orange borders. It was a check for 30 dollars from his work. The older barber said he would take less than the advertised price if it was cash and that this was a common practice among “professional” barbers, but that we need to keep it quiet. He said he would call us and we left.

In the next moment of my dream it was just my brother and I. We were in downtown Rockford, IL, where I'm from. He was being weird and aloof and seemed very young. Upon reflection, I think this is pretty symbolic of our real relationship. We don’t talk as much as I’d like. He has his own life and world and it makes me sad. I still see him as my little brother, but he’s almost 30. I often wish we could go back in time so I could try to sure up our relationship. It seemed we had some free time before we were going to meet up with our family. I asked him where he wanted to go. He said he wanted to go to a building that was near our old church, downtown. This area is NOT a good part of town and there is a lot of crime and issues in this area. When we were kids we didn’t notice much. We just parked at the church, crossed the street, and went in. It was when we got older we realized the surrounding area had gotten bad. I told him maybe we shouldn't walk around down there. He said he wanted to check out the building because it had been shot up in a drive-by.... in my eyes, confirming my position of not going. But off we went. Quickly, though, the dream brought us to Chicago. We were downtown Chicago outside the big Macy's or Marshall Field's or whatever it is now. It didn’t look like Chicago, but we knew it was. I thought maybe we should grab a snack. I mentioned finding a place that sold cinnamon rolls or something. We decided to go in to the department store instead and walk around a little. We both used to go there with our parents as kids to see Santa. (Rockford is only about 2 hours from Chicago and we usually took the train in from Harvard). We went in, but the giant department store seemed more like a really crowded old house. A big house... but really crowded and old. There were racks of weird clothes everywhere. It actually felt like one of those county home stores or a craft fair or something. Like all the clothes had been handmade from fabrics found at Michael's. I found a table that had some cookies and a few M & M's. I grabbed a couple of the M & M’s but left the cookies as they were wrapped and I wasn’t sure they were free. I then realized I was holding my little baby son and he was starting to get upset. He needed to be changed. Everything was super crowded and I couldn't find a bathroom or anything. I headed down to the main floor and ended up in a basement, which felt like really any home basement. The kind you hung out in with your friends in high school. Low ceiling, shitty old green carpet, a used up couch, and a Formica counter and sink left over from when someone started to renovate and stopped. I headed for the counter where a teen-aged girl was standing in front of a mirror. She was putting in her retainer and upon seeing me freaked out and ran away. I then realized I was in the staff lounge area. But it was too late. I needed to change my son, so I did. Soon enough a bunch of my friends (none of them whom I recognized) found me and we laughed about how we were hanging out in the staff lounge. We stayed down there for a while and I told them about the girl with the retainer freaking out.

As far as dreams go, it was pretty good. Not scary or crazy, but not overly stimulating. Very vivid, though. It never quite got to lucid. The least vivid part, but the part that stuck with me the most was the stuff with my brother. It makes me want to call him today, and I think I will. I’m not sure dreams really mean all that much, but maybe they give us messages we should listen to sometimes.

Strange Dreams

I had two dreams last night I can remember quite a bit of.

The first, I feel, was a combination of a few TV shows I watched last night before bed. I was some sort of secret spy or agent of some sort. I was watching myself from outside my body as a third person (which would also relate to the TV show thing). I was with my wife and daughter (which I don’t actually have) in an apartment, housed in a large brick apartment building complex. It was on the 3^rd floor of the building. I remember this because I ran up the stairs of it several times. The very last time I ran up them to my apartment there was definitely some M.C. Escher stuff happening. I told my daughter I’d be back later and my wife and I just exchanged glances. I left and went to go get into one of two helicopters waiting. One was a slightly larger, orange helicopter. The other was black. They were both extremely narrow and had no landing gear. They also were both really wobbly and seemed to work like toys. “We”, (who ever I was with… I’m not sure due to third person viewing) were on our way to go blow something up. I think we were going to blow up a garbage truck or something weird like that. Unfortunately we’d been discovered and a group of suited men were on our tail. The next thing I know I am racing through my apartment complex to warn my wife to hide.

That’s it. That’s the dream. It wasn’t particularly strange, but I found it very calm, despite how intense it could have been. I think its because I was watching in third person. It was also weird that I was probably the bad guy.  Don’t know that that means.

The second dream I had seems to be part of an ongoing series of dreams where I go back to college. In this case, I wasn’t thrust back to freshman year as in the other ones I’ve had. In this one I was just going back to school as me right now.

The school I was at was supposedly Wisconsin, but the field house where most of the dream took place was pretty old, crowded, and beat up. It was like Colorado University’s old field house, but with tons of equipment and people. This field house is incredibly vivid and I could take you on a tour of it right now or build a movie set based on it. It apparently doubled as the rec center where everyone worked out. I remember trying to find the locker room to get changed and enter the field house. Once I was in there I was crossing the indoor track and I almost got ran over by a line of girls moving pretty damn fast. I realized that the Wisconsin team was having practice/time trials. I recognized two of the athletes hanging out as a couple of the seniors from the high school cross country team I coach.  I recognized another as one of the 7^th grade girls I coach in basketball. Apparently she was in college. I thought nothing of it. One of the first things I noticed was that most of the runners had a small blanket over their shoulders. When I said hi to one of my athletes they told me it was a team tradition to have a blankie. We laughed and I told him it was cool that he was already feeling like a part of the team and that it seemed like they would be a lot of fun. Then I saw a bunch of runners surround my 7th grade girl athlete, we'll cal her B. She used her feet to roll up a towel really fast into a kind of pillow. A bunch of the girls acted semi-impressed and cheered. One of the other girls on the team seemed to be the judge of whether B id it right or not. It seemed to be another tradition of theirs. She picked it up and tested it out, approving of B’s job. My athletes and a couple others came with me as I walked around the field house to take a tour. There were weight benches and people running around, working out. I remember in my dream at this time hoping someone would ask me to join the team. I wanted to be asked and then be asked to train with them and get back on a team and run track at Wisconsin. Silly idea, but its what I wanted in my dream. Peaking over a small ledge separating the weight room area and the basketball courts, I saw the guys and girls team practicing together. I guess practicing would be a strong word for what they were doing. They were crawling on their knees and elbows. It seemed that they were in trouble and this was the punishment… not sprints, but crawls. It looked painful. Near the end of my dream, I was heading back over by the track team. I saw their coach and then I saw my dad come up and shake his hand and start talking with him. I called out to him. He seemed surprised to see me. My dad looked great. He was 20 years younger, taller, and in great shape. He seemed very happy. He asked what I was doing there. I told him I decided to go back to school. He asked what I was going to study…. I had no answer for this and then my dream ended.

I’m not sure what it means to keep having dreams about going back to college. My wife and I just got done with all that again as she now has a Master’s and her Administration license to become a principal. I, too, also now have my Master’s degree in Art and Design with an emphasis in Art Education. I thought I might be done with school, but I keep having dreams of going back. It’s the good kind of going back though. It’s not the school you sign up for later in life and do all the work at home while still maintaining a job. It’s the kind of going back to school where you actually get to go back to college itself and it seems like a blast. I’ll have to think more about why I am having these dreams. Do I was to go back to school? Do I want teach in college? I’m not sure, but I don’t mind these dreams. They’re pretty fun.

Team Mom and Dad: Equal time?

This past weekend was a nice three day weekend due to Presidents Day. My wife and I had really nothing crazy planned. She had a brunch thing with her friends Saturday, allowing her to get out of the house and allowing me some alone time with our little baby boy of almost 3 months. This weekend of free time, though, ultimately lead to a conversation we needed to have surrounding how we both help in taking care of our little man. Here's the lead in....

The period of time while my wife was gone this weekend, about 5 hours (which I thought was going to be closer to 3), went pretty well. Our little man, though, doesn’t love eating from the bottle. He got hungry almost the immediately after my wife left. I warmed up a bottle while he screamed bloody murder. His screaming and crying doesn't really get to me... I just feel bad he's crying. Warming up a bottle only takes a few minutes, but for those few minutes, despite efforts to soothe, he's pretty upset.

I do not want your ridiculous bottled milk! I want the good stuff!

He didn’t take the bottle for a while when I first tried to give it to him, screaming to try to get his mom’s attention that he was hungry. Once he realized his best option was me, with the bottle, and that the bottle had milk in it, he ate. But he wasn’t happy about it. He still tried to cry and moan while eating, which was kind of funny, but also made me nervous he would spit up. He got hungry two more times during this period and each time screamed his head off until he finally ate a little, then would fall asleep halfway through because he was tired from screaming.

When my wife got home, I told her how it went, putting a mostly positive span on things. It really wasn’t that bad. I was just a little frustrated as I thought she was going to be home sooner and that would have meant one less screaming party… but really it wasn’t a big deal at all. We did get to play some, make faces, dance a little, etc. My wife, though, seemed almost pleased that he got upset. Not that the baby was upset, but that I could see what it was like. I could be reading into her  demeanor way too much, here. But I get it. Mom’s that are at home (and I mean at the beginning really… my wife will be returning to work soon), want the spouse to see how hard it actually is during the day. To know they are working hard and that it’s not easy.

Here’s the thing, though. I know it’s not easy. I never said it was or have said anything about how I have to work and she GETS to stay home, or how hard my day was compared to hers, or anything like that. Sometimes, though, I get a sense that she thinks I do have these thoughts. I really don’t.

On the last day of the nice long weekend, I was putting in some work time for school, planning out a couple brand new lessons I would like to try out. During this time, my wife was also trying to do some resume building, etc. as she is going to look for a new job now that she has her administration license. We took turns with the baby boy, but, if I am honest, she took him more. I am very willing to take him, but if he is hungry, often it’s easier for her to take him. Most of the time he cries its because he's hungry. Also, my wife and son have developed a daily routine. I don't know whats in their routine, so I tend not to follow it. At the end of the day, though, all this started a conversation that never got heated or loud, but there was some obvious frustration.

My wife thought it might be a good idea to set up a time when I got home from work and coaching that  would be my turn with the baby. I'd be in charge from 5-7 or something like that and I would take full responsibility for the little man and that maybe we would set up times on weekends, too. I think she had a conversation with her extremely organized friend (who is awesome, but definitely a very organized person and is the type of person others follow on Pinterest to see how she organizes her kitchen and stuff). While I see the merit in this idea, I immediately questioned it.

Do we really want to set hard boundaries or time lines for when we are going to parent? Do we want to set our lives up so that I am separate from you for 2 hours each day, or that you are separate from the baby during that time? Are we not going to work together? I don’t mind helping at all and want to spend time with my baby boy, and want to be engaged, but I think putting a time limit or quota on it is tough. Part of the reasoning behind this idea, is to make sure he is getting a bottle everyday. We've talked about this part before and agree. He needs to be used to the bottle for when my wife goes back to work. He won't take a bottle from her because he knows she has the fresh goods. But, in my opinion as a first time parent and knowing very little, I think creating clear cut times is not the way to go.

The end of this conversation was cut off as a neighbor stopped by, for which I was grateful. I really didn't want to come to conclusion because I feel like we weren't in the right head space for it. To be honest, it felt like one of those conversations that happen when you are feeling frustrated but would seem unnecessary later on. You'd look back and realize it didn't need to happen or it didn't need to happen the way it did.

Last night, though, was a good example of what I would like to see us do. I got home around 5:30 after work and practice. My wife had dinner almost ready, which is awesome of her (I don’t mean to make it seem that she needs to make dinner. I do sometimes, too, but it was awesome it ready to go...). The little man was napping. Half way through eating, he woke up. I decided to go pick him up and ate while bouncing him a little. After eating he was hungry and my wife prepped a bottle. I kept him happy and occupied until it was ready and then fed him. He wasn’t super happy about the bottle, but he did alright. Throughout the evening we took turns. I played with him and hung out with him while my wife worked on her resume stuff. She took him when he got hungry again and I sat with them and chatted. I took him back when he was getting really fussy while eating to help burp him and give my wife a quick break.

The point is, we didn’t set exact times or boundaries. We worked together. I helped out when I could. My wife stepped in when it was needed. We worked together and the little guy had a great evening and slept through the night. 

In marriage, I think we often fall into the traps of keeping track of who does what and how much. “I made dinner last night, so it’s your turn.” “I made dinner, so you do the dishes.”  “I did laundry, now you do this.” We keep a tally. I’m not the first to point this out and won’t be the last. I am totally guilty of this and have to catch myself when I do it. It’s not about how much I do vs. how much someone else does. The question is, are we both working together to achieve the goal or get “X” done? We both know the dishes need to be put away. If you have the time, take a minute and do it, whether you did it last time or not. If the baby is upset, let’s figure out why and try to help. If my wife seems frustrated and tired, I will step in if possible. In our house, I have kind of taken over a lot of the dog duties, but my wife will go play with her or walk her if I ask her to, or without asking at all, to help me out. Most of the time, it doesn’t take more than a quick word or polite plead and things get taken care of. I like this system and maybe it seems like I should do more, but I think trying to set up an actual time quota will only lead to argument, frustration, and more problems. 

My wife and I are a good team and have demonstrated it time and time again. We’ve accomplished a lot together. Can I do more to help sometimes?…Most likely, yes. Do we get frustrated with each other? Sure. But, we always seem to figure it out. Will the topic of equal time in childcare come up again… I am positive it will. But that’s okay. If we can hear each other out I think we will be just fine.