Oh, My Gosh! Another Publishing Dream!

Don't worry. This time, none of you were in it. And this dream was nowhere near as disturbing as the first one, because it didn't wake me up. In fact, I didn't remember it until mid-morning when I was on the exercise bicycle. You know, it's true what they say about exercise and mind/body connections and all that.

Anyway, this time I was going to meet with an editor in New York. Unfortunately, I had a whole crew of family members with me. They were family members I didn't recognize because this was one of those dreams where you know who people are even though they don't look like anyone you've ever seen before.

So, I'm with a whole bunch of relatives, and I'm about to leave for my meeting with an editor I've never seen before when one of my Gauthier cousins says, "You're going like that? In blue jeans? In clogs?" Back in the day, my Gauthier aunts liked to dress up, but they're mostly dead now.

I did begin to feel badly that I wasn't wearing a suit and stockings of some sort, though, I have to say on the few times I've been in a New York editorial office, no one dressed like that. Anyway, now I'm rushing off to that meeting and distressed because I'm dressed wrong.

I'm in a car with my husband driving, which he would never, ever do, you could not pay him enough to drive in New York City. And, sure enough, we're caught in traffic and trying to find weird streets that are named after letters of the alphabet. Oh, and by the way, it's getting to be late. I have an appointment at nine o'clock at night to meet an editor. I kept saying to my husband, "Are you sure that's right?" It was as if he was acting as my agent. (Hmmm. A little psychic expression of hostility?)

The meeting ends up being in a hotel room, and, it turns out, we brought a bunch of my relatives with us, including children, who are all wandering around the room while I sit on the bed talking to an editor who looks like an older Meg Ryan. (Yes, I know Meg Ryan is older, but in this dream, the editor looks older still.)

The editor has read my manuscript (not necessarily the one I've been working on for more than a year, some mystery manuscript) and she's suggesting changes, and I'm going, "Yeah, I could do that...Sure, that's alright. I can do that."

Am I a simmering cauldron of work anxiety or what?

The meaning of this dream? I worked about ten minutes yesterday because I was running errands all day. So last night I dreamed about family and work.

Errands are the price we pay for living in an affluence culture. I'm going to do an essay on that some day.