BAM BAM BAM! My alarm goes off waking me from a dream that I have already begun to forget. I lay there knowing that it was a good dream; one of those dreams that when you wake up you have to fight back a strong urge to grab a pen and pad and frantically jot down all you can remember about the dream before it fades away, forever lost. As my eyelids slowly separate themselves from each other I am thinking about just how crazy this whole “dream diary” thing sounds. Who does that, I mean really, come on, who wakes up and writes down their dreams? Then I realize that I am the kind of person that would do some outlandish shit like that, and then I realize that I am really not that kind of person because I have never done it. I finally realize that even if I wanted to record my epic dream, there would be no way to do this because I don’t remember a damn thing. The so called “epic” dream has slipped through my grasp because of the side tangent I had with myself as to whether or not I would be acting like a crazy person by trying to record my dream. I lethargically sit up in my bed and look at my jack russell terrier, Layla. We share a very real moment looking into one another’s eyes. I know exactly what she wants, but I don’t have time to walk her before leaving for school today. I wonder what life would be like if people could communicate with words unspoken like Layla and I. Never mind, that would make you a Jedi. I wonder if Obi-Wan had a dog…? Ah, snap! What am I doing, I’m running late.
I am in the shower thinking about my cleanest dirty shirt. If only I would have put that load in the dryer last night before passing out instead of watching three back-to-back episodes of Dexter on Netflix. I go downstairs and pour myself a glass of cold water in one of the cups that we keep in the freezer. It is finished in a quarter of the time it took me to pour it. I get into my beat up Ford F-150. The truck has a decent size whole in the back from where my dad backed into something. It was his old work truck from when he did construction with CDI on Folly beach. The owner of CDI had given it to him for being his right hand man. Or maybe he gave it to him after the whole in the back, the gash in the side, and the banged up front right fender had taken their tole on the overall appearance of the truck. Either way, it is mine now. Where the old CDI emblems were on the truck, I sloppily spray painted over them with the closest color to tan I could find at Wal-Mart. I have no shame whatsoever in driving this beat up F-150. I mean, hey, it gets me from A to B. I just wish the engine wasn’t fouling out randomly, especially coming over the bridge into downtown, that’s when it is the worst. The truck kind of reminds me of my life. It may have seen its fair share of battle and may not always function like it should, but it keeps on going anyways.
Great post–some fine details in here. There seem to be three dominant anecdotes here–let’s call it the the faux dream journal, the dog-whisperer moment, and the busted truck. The frozen glass and the cleanest dirty shirt enter as more minor episodes. Each of these items has their own interest or integrity, something just off enough about them (why is the glass in the freezer?).
But do you think these moments were almost too scattered, too disconnected? Without a guiding trope, I think the sense of character itself needs to step in to unify the ensemble. We need to intuit what about the character brings this all together. I’m not sure I see it yet — anyone else have a take on this?