Dreaming on Your Feet

I had a dream that my girlfriend and I went to the chocolatier and bought some Fair Trade chocolates for Easter. We got in the car and, as I was steering us onto the highway, she had both her feet pressed on top of mine. I couldn’t step on the breaks or the gas and could hardly see around her, cars rushing all around us.

My girlfriend had a dream that she was driving a getaway car, but my feet were in her way as she was trying to stomp on the gas.

We woke up, holding each other. Her feet were pressing down on mine. My feet were pushing up against hers.

Have we been stepping on each other’s dreams?

If we wake up, can I get safely home with my Fair Trade chocolate? And what is she going to get away with?

Please tell me your weird “when I woke up from my dream” moments.

Consistency, in Moderation

It is good to be consistent, sometimes.

Odd nut. (Photo by Evan Andrew Mackay)

Consistently washing your hands is generally commendable. As for the desirability of consistently laughing at my clever remarks, opinions vary.

Consistently driving on the right hand side of the road, in a forward motion, is helpful in some countries, but would likely be problematic in others.

Consistently comforting a crying child might seem a good idea, until (as I learned over the holidays) the child catches on to the potential for manipulation.

What about in my writing? I aim (with limited success) for my writing to be consistently satisfying – consistency of quality – but there is some expectation that a writer should maintain a degree of consistency in quantity, to produce a certain quantity of words within a certain time frame.

Should I write one blog post every week, every second week, or every three days? Or should I write a blog post when I have something I think would be of particular interest to, um, say, you for example?

In defense of the irregularity of my postings I could quote Oscar Wilde, “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

If one is too consistent, they get called “extremist” like when Lisa Simpson insists her mother pay for the two grapes she ate at the grocery store – “I need a price check on two grapes. Yeah, you heard me, Phil. Two measly, stinkin’ grapes.” Lisa is just sticking to her principles. As Ayn Rand fairly observes, extremism is merely consistency.

I’m not extremely extreme, myself, but I am consistently inconsistent. So as my New Year’s resolution, by which I mean to say my first New Moon resolution of 2012, I will aim for consistency – in moderation – regarding the regularity of my output. And I mean that in an entirely non-medical way (but stay tuned for my upcoming Fringe show blog).

And now, in the spirit of “Moderation in everything, including moderation”, let’s open another bottle of Amarone.

Woody Allen Fired Me and my Day Begins

When Woody Allen fires you, it’s time to wake up and start writing.

Woody Allen at work

The room was full of people and a bunch of us hired to write for Woody (yeah, ’cause that’s how that works) were sitting down for our first meeting with him. Woody came close to me, looked at me much like he’s doing in this press photo from the set of his latest film “Midnight in Paris“, and gently explained that I hadn’t been pulling my weight and he couldn’t afford to keep me on staff. “You haven’t given me anything to work with here. You’re the only one who hasn’t been giving me funny lines.” “But,” I feebly protested, “you haven’t told us about the characters or the plot or anything. We haven’t started yet.”

“That hasn’t stopped the others.” Then he took out a handkerchief full of change, shook 11 loonies and some pennies and dimes into my hand and told me I could drop by the production office next week to pick up the rest of the 40 bucks he owed me. I co-operatively shuffled out through the crowded room of happy people who were about to begin their career-making work with Woody Allen, and I woke up.

Woody Allen told me I wasn’t producing any material and everyone else was coming up with great stuff. Never had the meaning 0f a dream been so clear to me. It was a great wake-up call. I woke up and started writing.