State of Dreaming

For a long time, almost all of the past year, I seemed to be having no dreams at night. Probably I wasn't sleeping long enough to get into the proper state for dreams to occur. Plus, when I did have a dream, it was almost always a nightmare involving the person I loved leaving me for another.

I don't know if this is a sign of emotional health or not, but both my dreams and my nightmares are about much more diverse subjects now. I rarely mention these night visions, but last night's was too good to ignore. I know that my friends Brad, Joel and Howard, at a minimum and my sister Carole and her husband Tom will be able to appreciate it.

We all grew up in Michigan, which is one-half of the population whipping itself up into a feverish pitch for Saturday's football game at Ohio State. In my dream, I was busy doing other tasks, but I saw on a TV that late in the first quarter it was what the announcer called a "defensive struggle" and that the score was:

UM 0
OSU 3

My dream went on, and I was multitasking as always (feeding kids, cleaning up the apartment, doing laundry, burying the dead rat the kids discovered in the backyard, paying bills, setting up plans with a friend to see her Saturday night, returning a few incoming emails, checking a website to make sure the big soccer game is still on this afternoon, etc.)

I again passed by the TV and at first glance I thought one team was way ahead and that it was OSU. But when I looked closer, the score was

UM 19
OSU 17

and Michigan was driving with the football into the Ohio "red zone,” led by its talented back, Mike Hart. It was late in the 3rd quarter and the announcer was talking about how Michigan was winning the battle for the line of scrimmage, and that Ohio State's defense was wearing down.

The dream ended without resolution of any sort, not unlike most of my real life dreams. I'll have to wait and see, like everybody else, what happens on Saturday.

***

Does anyone else remember when those little 3 oz. sample sizes of toothpaste and shampoo used to be free giveaways in bins in stores? I think the companies that distributed them must have considered them as branding opportunities. They were too small to be of much use to anybody, in an age where air travel was still more of a novelty for most than the necessity it's become.

Nowadays, the prices on those tiny sized items seem to be rising, ever since the Department of Homeland Security identified those "sample" sizes as the maximum legal containers of liquids, gels, etc., you can carry on an airplane. I'm guessing that the manufacturers are churning out a lot more product in small sizes than ever before.

This is the opposite of the "supersizing" that has occurred in our food and beverage industry. Everything comes together in the security line at your airport, where supersized Americans unload plastic bags of sample sized shampoo and toothpaste for security guards to see.

The media world has an annual cycle of its own. We know that the period at the end of each calendar year is a slow period for us, normally, unless a monster news story breaks, because the minds of our audiences begin to wander. The two holidays Thanksgiving and Christmas bracket one last, frantic work period, but for most people it is largely devoted to shopping, mailing presents and cards, or attending office parties.

Precious little work actually gets done at that time of year. For a reporter or writer, if you have no pressing assignments, it's time to take stock and dream of what the next year might bring.

For a single person, without a partner, this can be a dangerous season. Last winter, I was in a dangerous state, barely eating or sleeping, worrying about my relationship, shedding pounds almost as quickly as I did when wracked with disease in India 36 years ago.

This time it was a heart ailment that was responsible, but not one doctors can treat. What can you do about a broken heart? For something that comes up for virtually everyone sooner or later, we seem to remain basically defenseless against the invasive disease caused by experienced this kind of wrenching loss.

I'm in a lot better shape this winter, and I hope you are too. As clichéd as it may sound, I'd rather be having this year's dream over last year's nightmare by an order of magnitude or more.

Go Blue!