Skip to main content

Be Selective About Finishing What You Start

 Did you ever wake from a dream and think "aww, we were having a good conversation?"

I'm chatting with a stranger in his own house. I'm there to visit a housemate who I haven't yet seen, apparently one of a dozen. This stranger has asked me "'Something Something' or 'The Prodigy of blah blah', which would you read?"

"I've never heard of either, so I'd just be choosing based on the title".

"Ok."

"'The Prodigy of blah blah' then."

"No, it's not 'The Prodigy of blah blah', it's 'The Pehidety of blah blah'." I have no idea what he's saying.

"Could you write them both down? That'd make this easier."

He picks up a Britta pitcher and a Sharpie and begins writing. There's already marker smeared across the sides. He stops, looks at what he's written a moment, then rubs it with the side of his hand, smearing whatever he'd written to illegibility.

"Do you ever stare at your options so long that you miss out on doing any of them?"

"You know, you could just start both, and if one grabs you, put down the other until you finish the first. When you're done you can go back to the one you put down and decide whether you want to finish it or not."

He doesn't respond. Is he listening?

"You don't even need to pay to do this. Just get them both from the library."

He's staring at his gray smeared water pitcher, deep in thought, like some idea is gathering on the tip of his tongue when I wake up. I think, "We were having a good conversation. Shame to interrupt it." But there's no we, of course. Just my sleep addled mind babbling to itself.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pick Up the Phone

I had a dream the other night, where Lauren told me very emphatically that it was crucial that a take this phone call. She kept saying that I needed to take the call because it was very important, without telling me why it was so important. So I woke up to my phone ringing convinced that I have to answer it, not knowing really what's going on, but sure that I have to answer it because it's really important.
2 comments
Read more

Finding Diamonds

I'm beside the road in what seems like a garden, or what will be a garden or a large field. Nothing is planted in it, but there are giant rows of dirt mounds, which I assume are there because the field has been made ready for planting. I'm with two other people, one of whom is very angry and the other is just as scared as I am. See, we need to find his diamonds or, well he hasn't said what, but I'm sure he's going to kill us if we don't. We've been doing this for a while. We've found little clues at other places, but we never found the diamonds. I don't remember taking his diamonds, or burying them, but I'm sure that's what's happened. Once again, we see a clue. The same sort of clue we've seen the other times, which led nowhere: a small piece of clear plastic. I squat and look at the area more closely. At the top of the mound I'm on, I see something. Now I'm a little bit excited. It's a small clear half buried piece of pl...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Do You Know You're Dreaming?

This afternoon, I had two dreams where I figured out I was dreaming. In the first one I was hanging out with this internet stranger named Lauren I've been chatting with. We were out on the porch with someone else, but I don't remember who. In my mind I was marvelling at how different Lauren looked in person from the pictures I've seen of her. Then I move to the rail on the porch and lean over holding my hands out. That's when I noticed my nails were painted. I told Lauren that I was dreaming. She either asked how I knew or what I was going to do about it, and as I jumped off the porch and into the front yard, I told her. I knew I was dreaming because my nails were painted, but I was sure I hadn't painted them in a week or more. I hadn't painted them the color they were in my dream in months. And I was planning on poking around and taking control, which is what I did. First I kneeled down and started poking the concrete. It was soft and bent in, like it was made ...
Post a Comment
Read more