Tag: frustration

The Ice Cream Dream

I was terribly sick in a dream. Not at first, though. First, ice cream chaos reigned. Ice cream was due to be served to people but supply issues and disorganization plagued the effort. Growing urgently angry, I stepped in to straighten everything out. The ice cream were mostly in little sealed cups. Varieties of flavors abounded. I tasted several before stepping in to fix the issues, and the ice creams were creamy and tasty. I felt I needed to step in because the incompetence on display insulted my sensibilities. Ice cream was being dropped everywhere. Melting. People were going without ice cream. That shouldn’t be, I thought. We have so much ice cream. Too much ice cream is being wasted.

I began organizing pods of people. Some were collecting the ice cream and taking them to marshaling points. Others were handing the ice cream out. Yet, people kept failing at their duties. Despite my efforts, the situation seemed as worse. I worked harder, faster, more demanding. Still no respite from the shortages and errors. The head honcho came down wanting to know the situation. I tried smoothing things over. He believed and accepted. Then he told me, “A little girl is at the front, Piper. Make sure she gets an ice cream.”

Right. I’d get right on that. I plunged my hands into a tub of ice cream cups. OMG, they were all warm. They’d all been opened, too. WTF! The honcho came back, shouting, “Where’s the ice cream for Piper?” “I’m on it,” I shouted back, then cursed, shouting, “All these ice creams have been opened. Why were they opened? Find me one that hasn’t been opened and take it up front to Piper.”

At that moment is when I began feeling sick. I rushed to a toilet, yanking my shorts down as I went. Too late; crap spilled out everywhere. The honcho came back and saw. “Oh, my, let me get someone to clean you up.” I replied, “We’re still looking for ice cream for Piper.”

0

The Measurements Dream

It was a weird shopping dream. A bunch of other things had happened where I was going around shopping but then I came to this point. I was helping people shop. Roped into it because I was there and knew what was going on, I was friendly and upbeat about helping others, eager to do it because they were grateful for the assistance. But then I encountered a trio. It seemed like a husband, wife, and older child from what I saw, but that’s a guess. White, all were overweight. I was helping them get three ounces of the product that they wanted. Measuring it out, I handed the white bag to them. “What’s this?” the man asked. “We wanted three ounces,” the woman said while the child hovered sullenly behind them.

I was confused because this was three ounces. I showed them the scale and measurement with the stuff on it. “That’s three ounces. That’s what you asked for.”

The woman smirked. “We want three ounces.”

Her smirk irritated me. “This is three ounces. Look.” I pointed at the scale. The line for help was piling up. “That says three ounces.”

The man and woman peered at it. “Where?” he asked.

I pointed again, moving my finger to emphasize where it said three ounces. “There. That says three ounces. You said you wanted three ounces. This is three ounces.”

The woman smirked. “We. Want. THREE. Ounces.”

WTF? Seriously. Looking back on the dream, it went on with more of the same. My frustration kept rising. With crowd noise growing from impatient people waiting behhind them, I was finally rid of the people only for them to return a few minutes later. Flummoxing me more, they insisted they hadn’t been there yet. “We want three ounces,” the man said. The short woman was holding the white bag I’d given them before. Their listless boy hovered beside her.

I asked, “Do you want three more ounces?” They gazed at me like stupefied cows, so I said, “Because I already gave you three ounces.” I pointed at the white bag in the woman’s hand. She looked at it like she’d never seen it before. “Isn’t that what’s in that bag?”

She said, “We want three ounces.”

I gave up. Just walked away. People called after me but I kept going with the thought, there’s somewhere else that I need to be.

2

On Some Days

  1. On some days, I want to get away by myself to scream at the world. Yesterday was such a day. Stepped into the shower and screamed in silence. Was somewhat cathartic.
  2. I was driving along unlined streets in a residential neighborhood yesterday. Cars were parked along the side but there’s more than enough room for two cars to pass. Yet, so many drivers could not manage that. Driver age, sex, vehicle size…none of it seemed to explain it. People just couldn’t manage it. I thought it was because of the lack of lines. What tended to happen was that folks in one direction would stop so that folks proceeding in the other direction could drive straight down the middle. Young, old, male, female, all exhibited problems with it. “Just move over,” I’d tell them through the windshield. “Just use your side of the street. Honestly, it’s not that hard.” I should be more considerate of others but…on some days…it’s harder.
  3. Contemplating a favorite shirt’s fate. Like everything else, there is a season, turn, turn, etc. Bought this shirt back in 1999. Have photographic evidence of that, for there I am, wearing it in a dated photo. Nothing special, button down collar, long-sleeved, cotton, faded blue stripes on egg shell white. It’s been with me in two states, four houses, five companies, and ten cats (sigh.) (The cats were three to five at a time…) Probably paid about twenty-five dollars for the shirt. Can’t recall that, although I do recall that I bought it on sale at Macy’s. Good jeans shirt. Have gotten some compliments while wearing it, but mostly I like its style and comfort. It’s been gently descending the hill for years, evidenced mostly through armpit stains. I’ve washed those out with a lemon juice and baking soda process a couple times. Now, though…the collar is frayed. It looks like it’s time for the shirt to finally move on. I guess, properly, I’m moving on from the shirt.
  4. I feel like a prisoner sometimes. (Such an exaggeration, right?) I hate throwing things away, but it’s inculcated into my nature and our society. Besides the shirt, there’s now an electric kettle. Probably purchased ten years ago, the spring which helps the lid release and open no longer functions. Can it be fixed? Maybe…if I can find the right spring.
  5. I contemplate the conundrum. Savings are acquired by mass production. Costs are kept down by underpaying people and going to the margin on design and materials. Paying more can gain you more…maybe. You really can’t be sure. But after a few years, when the device or clothing fails, what do you do with it? Where does it goes? The recycling gig seems to be filling up and failing. That’s always been the fallback: recycle or repurpose. I have containers full of used shirts now relegated to being rags out in the garage.
  6. Dad was going to get a new stent this past week. His wife called. He’s eighty-eight. A COPD sufferer, he’d gone into the hospital on Monday to have his meds adjusted for his COPD. Suffering from edema resulting in a swollen left leg and foot, he was kept for observations and a stress test, and given diuretics. The stress test never happened; he was wheezing too much on that day, Wed. He was released on Thursday with plans to have the stress test done in the future. Meanwhile, he and his wife got the COVID-19 vaccination on Friday, which was paramount for them.
  7. I spent an hour on the phone chatting with Dad. He was in a talkative mood and opened up about his youth, something unusual for him. Mom and Dad divorced when I was about ten. He was in the military and oft stationed overseas, so I lived with him for about seven years total, including my final three years of high school. It was just him and me for two of those years. He worked, and I went to school, cleaned, and cooked. We didn’t see much of one another.
  8. Dad revealed that he met Mom in Sioux City, Iowa, when he was stationed there. (She’s from Turin, Iowa, and he’s from Pittsburgh, PA.) This was back in 1952. He was a radioman and she was a seventeen-year-old telephone switchboard operator. Too young to for her to marry in Iowa, they went to Luverne, Minnesota. There he discovered that while she was older enough (fifteen was the age for females there), he wasn’t old enough at twenty; he had to be twenty-one. Naturally, Dad managed to procure a letter with his father’s signature verifying that he was twenty-one. But no, wait. They told him that he had to have his mother’s signature. “Well, Mom is dead,” Dad replied. Then he called his father and said, “Can you tell these people that Mom passed?” That was done but he got grief for it from his parents for years.
  9. Joe Biden has been POTUS for a month and has yet to go golfing. By this point in his term, one month, Con Don had golfed six times. Donald Trump’s aides don’t want to admit the President is golfing – CNN Politics
  10. Enough whining and complaining for now. Got my coffee. Caspa, Uno Dos, and Billy await. They’re just meeting Spag and the recos for the first time. Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.
3

A Dream of Angst and Symbolism

Dream hits keep coming. In another busy night, one stood out.

I was welcomed into a luxury hotel, room 506. There, I found wonderful devices. Connected to my brain, they enabled to accomplish things with simple thought. Think the words and they’re typed. Imagine a food and it’s there. Ponder a drink and it’s at hand.

Wow, of course, right. I was giddy with amazement. Enjoying myself, I went off. Dream time zipped by. I found myself lost. Struggling to find my way back to my hotel and room, I ended up down on an airport tarmac looking for a way in. A woman gave me a white cap. Realizing everyone was wearing one, I put it on so I blended in. Then, trying to sneak into the building past the others (I was casual about it), another woman with a loud voice accosted me, demanding that I write three things on my cap. That confused the hell out of me. (Love that expression: look, no more hell in me! It’s a temporary state, though.) I asked, “Why should I write that on my cap?”

She snipped, “Because you’re part of my security team.”

Removing the cap with a smirk, I answered, “No, I’m not.”

I just walked past her after that. Suddenly back in the hotel, I asked the staff, “Where’s my room?” They replied, “Who are you?”

Although it irritated me, I gave them my name. Then I asked, “What room am I in?” They told me that I should know my room number. Irritation growing because they weren’t helping me and I couldn’t remember my room number, I began guessing. I recall something about two. “Two something, two something. Two oh five. Two oh six.” Then it hit me, no, no, it’d been eleven. One and one was two. I’d reached that by adding the numbers together. Right, five oh six.

Knowing the room number and suddenly the key, a card, was in my hand. I rushed to my room. Shock and dismay quickly displaced my happiness and satisfaction. The room had been trashed. All my neat stuff was damaged and broken. Walking around, I demanded, “What happened? Who did this?” As answers didn’t come, I thought, I must fix these, and began picking up the pieces.

That’s when this dream ended. Yes, this one was weighted with all manner of symbolism and angst. Still fun, you know?

0

Mixed Dreams

Weighing dreams on the scales. There was another flying dream, brief but intense. I wore goggles in this one. The wind tore at my face. An insect flew into my mouth.

My sputtering and spitting marked the end to the flying portion. In a dream picosecond, I’m in the military somewhere, temporary duty somewhere, finishing up. A woman, a major is present. She came in for the same conference. I talk to her about sharing a ride to the airport. Plans and agreements are made.

Time skips ahead. It’s later than I thought. I need to rush. I haven’t packed! I need to check out, too. The airport is ninety miles away. No, it’s ninety minutes away.

I need to hurry.

I’m racing, explaining to the front desk, I order a ride and tell them where to meet me. Hurrying to the room, I shower and change clothes. Shoes! Where are they? Oh, I’ve packed them. Where’s my thing, where‘s my toilet kit?

Anxiety ratchets up.

I see a car, a silvery blue sedan, like a Buick. A woman is driving. My ride, I think. I wave at her. She parks and leaves her car. I shout over, “I need more time, I’m almost ready.”

She walks over and starts following me. I’m talking to her, babbling. We’re at once outside and in the room. I finally find my toilet kit — I’ve already packed it. Damn it, where’s my head?

And the woman says, “I’m not your ride. I’m your replacement. How was your visit?”

In morning’s warm light, it all makes sense. The military was a comfortable space. Not very challenging, and straightforward. Structured, with few surprises, and a lot of positive feedback.

Now I’m out on my own, flying on my writing words but so damned dismayed. Is it smart enough, original enough, good enough?

Where is my toilet kit?

I know. Standard writer qualms. Standard human qualms.

Standard life qualms.

See ya.

0

A Witnessing Dream

I, and another man, were rushing down the street through clear, sunny weather, eager to get to work. Each of us were on the sidewalk. He was ahead of me. The road and sidewalks were wide, and well-maintained. There was no other traffic.

Another friend, an elderly and short retired doctor who often reminds me of a garden gnome (except he never smokes a pipe, and he’s more slender than your typical garden gnome) was rushing head-on toward another friend.

Garden gnome wasn’t in a car. The other friend was in a red car, but it was like a cartoon car. I could see into it.

Watching them close on one another (with garden gnome hailing them and grinning), I thought, they’re both going too fast. They’re going to crash.

They did.

I slowed to watch, worrying and expecting many of the standard things seen in a high-speed crash. The two came together but the one in the car was ejected straight into garden gnome. They both slid down the street hundreds of feet, coming to rest in an intersection.

Oh, no, I thought. There’s traffic. They’re going to be run over.

The garden gnome stood, grinning, unfazed, astonishing me. The other was also unhurt. Collecting herself, she hurried away as the garden gnome tried to speak with her.

Reassured (but astonished) that they were okay, I carried on. Getting to work, I encountered the garden gnome. We exchanged insights about what’d happened. We were laughing about it, since he was okay. I was enthralled by the slide he’d taken. It’d been monumental. I’d never seen anything like that before. He was still interested in talking to the other person, the woman, he said, but she was avoiding him. Then, seeing her, he rushed off again, calling her as he went.

I continued on to work but then was hurrying down the sidewalk along the street again, eager to get to work. The garden gnome was racing toward another friend. She was in a car. He wasn’t. They were weirdly like a video game.

I thought, I just saw this happen. Is it going to happen again?

It did. They crashed together. She was ejected. They slid along the road together.

The crash had been greater than before, sending debris into every direction. I rued not checking on them the previous time, so this time I went back to check on them. Both were fine. Each rushed off after reassuring me of that.

Well, that baffled the hell out of me. In the dream, I thought, I witnessed the same accident twice. Do these things happen in threes? Will there be a third?

Then I was called to work, except work was over, or that phase that’d been going on. We were continuing on to another phase.

Two distinguished and accomplished people were ahead of me. Still, outside, we were all heading toward a checkpoint. We needed to get past the checkpoint to continue. Some events were planned for the other side.

Each of us was carrying a large piece of something. I’m not sure if mine was a large stained wood object or bread to look like stained-wood. It was huge, requiring me to stretch my arms out, and slowed me a little.

One of the people, tall and mustached, wore an expensive but old-fashioned trench coat. I could tell by looking at it. The other, a younger woman, treated him with diffidence. He was talking, and they were strolling.

I was catching up with them. As I neared them, I heard him make a comment to that nature. Then he saw me and stopped.

We were going up a grassy green slope toward the checkpoint. The man, while trying to be blase, said that they should hurry so that I didn’t arrive for them. He upped their pace. I upped mine. Despite my larger burden, I got there first, pleased, triumphant, and sweaty.

“Did you wash it?” I was asked by the short, plump agent, as I looked back at the others. They remained a distance away. “You’re supposed to at least rinse it off. You guys never rinse them off.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about. I tried telling her, “It looks fine to me.” Waving that off, she escorted me to one of the tables set up for inspection as this transpired. Three tables were set up. Two other agents were present. So, they should be able to handle us in parallel, I thought as the other two arrived with their loads. I tried and failed to see what they carried.

My agent diddled and fussed without seeming to do anything. I knew, oh, they’re deliberately slowing me down. I wasn’t affronted nor outraged, but accepting, okay, slow me down here, others have more urgent needs (read, egos), and I can burst ahead once I get past these gatekeepers. I tried looking ahead to see what was next so that I could plan my actions. While I did, the other two slipped by me and went on, barely scrutinized, confirming my impression of what was going on.

The dream ended.

 

0

The Book Store Dream

There was so much dreaming last night.

One memorable part involved a back door where I checked on books. I don’t know why I checked on books there, but I would go out and look for books. It seemed to be by a garage door in my house. Returned surveys about books began arriving there. I struggled to understand what they were. My wife and some friends were in another part of the house. I took it to them but they were talking about other things and didn’t pay any attention.

I learned that the front of the house was a book store, but someone else owned it. I realized that the surveys were probably due to them but were being delivered to me instead. I found the owner, a woman, and told her that her surveys were being sent to me and that she needed to do something about that if she wanted to receive them. Another man, her employee, started talking to a group of people about the survey, and what they hoped to get from it. He was talking about the disappointment they had because so few had been returned. I interrupted him and told him they were being delivered to me instead of them, and gave them a stack of them.

Then I discovered an old Wizard of Oz DVD. Recalling how I’d come to have it, I went to return it to its correct place and discovered an entire stash of them.

Nobody else seemed to understand me, frustrating me. My wife kept leaving the back door open, and didn’t pay attention to my complaints about it. I finally told her that she couldn’t have those keys any longer. She and her friends decided to leave. She went to leave by the back door, discovered it was locked, and asked me if she could have the keys. That was a catalyst for sky-high frustration and irritation. I went through the same complaints and statements as before. She then left through the front, but still didn’t seem to understand.

Then I heard the book store owner, her employee, and several customers talking about the survey. The book store owner complained that they weren’t getting surveys back. The customers said they’d returned them. I intervened, explaining again they’d been sent to the wrong place, and that they were coming to me instead of the book store. I told the store owner that needed to be changed if she wanted to receive the survey. As I was now fed up with trying to get them to understand, I told her I’d no longer be an intermediary for ensuring her surveys reached her.

I left, but immediately regretted being spiteful. Outside, I walked down a large green hill. The hill was full of desks arranged like tombstones and grave markers. No one was at any of them. My desk, I knew, was at the bottom of the hill, where I was headed. As I was almost there, an old female friend, who I haven’t seen in twenty-plus years, joined me, talking and commiserating with me as we walked.

Reaching my desk, I sat in my chair and leaned forward in thought. She sat in a chair beside my desk, and then leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me. She was talking as she did, being very sympathetic, and then began kissing me.

The dream took an sharp, erotic turn after that.

0

#AWL

Time for a rant. Are you ready, boys and girls? Point of order, sir, but this is as much a whine as it is a rant.

Okay, point accepted. I’m full of complaints and do a lot of poor, poor, pity poor me first-world blues rants. This is another. That aside, let’s rant.

I’ve written fifteen novels. 

People say, “Fifteen? Really?”

Yes, sure, but that’s a number. There’s a story behind the number. There’s an asterisk beside it.

The first novel, as with many writers, was five-star crap. In the crap world, five-stars means it’s the worse possible crap. There’s no crap that exceeds its crappiness. It was an experience, though, that helped me understand more about my writing process.

Knowing that it needed more attention and focus than I was willing to give it, I printed out the stack, along with editing notes, and put it on disks, and set it aside. Someday, I’ll return to you, I promised it.

“Point of order, sir, but, despite that quantity, maybe you’re not a very good writer.”

Thank you for pointing that out. You’re right. That might be the case. I’m trying to do the best that I can. I keep trying to improve.

“Another point, sir.”

What now?

“Isn’t this really about your laziness and unwillingness to learn?”

Excuse me, but who are you? How did you get in here? Out, out, damn you.

Being obstinate, I proceeded to write five more novels. They were probably three-star and four-star crap. I knew where they had problems and what needed to be fixed. I didn’t want to fix them, because I wanted to write more and I didn’t want to bother with editing and revising. I liked writing, not editing and revising. I promised, someday I’ll edit them, but I knew that model a novel and setting it aside for editing and revising at a date TBA was unsustainable.

The next novel that I wrote, I said, “I must edit and revise this one. I need to learn that discipline.”

So, I did it. Yea, me! Sure. I then sought agents. I followed all of their parameters for submitting to them in hopes of persuading them to represent me, find a publisher, and get the novel published.

After almost a year of dealing with that, going through five agents, I hated that process. Maybe, I convinced myself (without too much difficulty), self-publishing is the way to go.

So I did that.

It was another process to learn, with as many obstacles and challenges as Ninja Warrior. Yes, the book was published. Yes, I sold some copies, but not nearly as many as hoped. I knew that I would need to market the book.

Oh, boy, more to learn.

I wanted to write; I didn’t want to learn how to market myself and my wares.

I told myself, someday I will. Then I wrote and self-published three more books, with just as little notice and sales, reminding me again and again, you need to market these books.

But…but…but…

Yeah.

Here I am again, this time with a complete series of five novels. Here I am again at the crossroads. Find an agent? Self-publish? Screw it all and just keep writing?

Not wanting to, first, hunt down a cover designer, copy-editor, acquiring an agent drew me. That’s the original dream, to write a novel, find an agent, have the novel published. In a sense, I’m returning home by taking that route.

Yes, I was again easily persuaded because that self-publishing journey had been less than rewarding and satisfying. I’m hoping that this journey will be more so.

I began with the standard search process. Who is out there? What do they want?

Lo, Jane Friedman had a decent article about finding an agent, and pointed toward #MSWL – Manuscript Wish List. That’s helpful, I thought with new gleams of hope.

Hah.

I have such rose-colored glasses, they should be illegal so that we can all save time and energy.

#MSWL has a search engine. What genre do you want? Put it in. Here’s the results. Wow, pages of results. How exciting.

Not after reading a bit more.

I searched for science-fiction. #MSWL’s search results include whenever science-fiction is mentioned. This includes when agents say, “I don’t want to see any science-fiction.” Ah. That was certainly fucking useful.

I spent hours searching #MSWL and PublishersMarketPlace, seeking someone interested in someone like me. I found some promising folks.

Well, it’s the year’s end. Many of those agents aren’t accepting right now. Check back in a few days, weeks, or months, and then they’ll be happy to see your work.

What agents say they want on their website, in their Twitter blurts, in articles and interviews, and in #MSWL do not align. One will say that they’re looking for SFF or some science-fiction variant while the other locations won’t mention it. Yes, and I understand from my efforts that it’s hard updating everything and every place.

YA seems to remain the hot market, judging from the number of agents hunting for YA manuscripts.

Also clear is that most agents will reply to you if they’re interested. They’ll usually respond in two weeks. However, if they’re not interested, you’re not going to hear back from them. Do not, of course, submit multiple submissions or simultaneous submissions, or anything like that, because that’s not far to them, and please don’t follow-up to see what’s going on with your query. They’re busy, you know.

That was the stake through my heart last time, that one-sided dimension to this whole business. Sipping a glass of medicating wine last night, I reflected that I needed to start #AWL – Author’s Wish Lists. But hell, that’s a short list. We want an agent. We want published. We want a painless process. Who doesn’t? Well, I could stipulate that I want an agent who wants me, that I want an agent who will respond to me to tell me, no, thanks.

Yes, before anyone notifies me of the obvious, that this is a competitive business, and yes, I know how many struggling writers are out there trying to find agents and get published, and, yep, I’m aware that others have gone through this, and that agents have limited resources, so they’re very sorry, but that’s what the situation dictates.

Yes, I know.

My muses are awake. They want to write. Do you see how many stories are out there, waiting to be written?

Rant over. Back to whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

4

A Sign

It’s a sign that things aren’t going well, computer-wise, when you try to reach http://www.isitdownrightnow.com to see if a website is having problems, and you can’t reach it because it’s down.

Amazing how frustrating something like the inability to reach one or two sites makes me.

0

The Trap

He doesn’t want his father to die, but this person that he sees every day doesn’t tell the jokes that his father used to make, and he doesn’t drink beer and coffee, doesn’t go walking with his dog, or wash his cars, or go for drives (driving too fast), or watch television and argue about sports.

He doesn’t want this man to die, even though his beard is white and wispy, and his hair is gone, and the lean, tall body sags like a worn fence, and he no longer barks out demands and orders.

He doesn’t want this man to die, the drooling one who sits in a chair and stares most of the day, the one that doesn’t eat much, mostly eating candy when he does eat, the man who doesn’t remember his name and needs help to use the toilet.

He doesn’t want this man to die, no matter what kind of wreck he is, because he knows that he’s still his father, and he will miss him more when he’s gone.

But he doesn’t want this man to suffer any more, because he is his father, so he comes every day, visiting and waiting, wondering and remembering, wishing that he had hope for something besides what it is.

1

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