8-15-07

I was awakened early by sounds of the outdoors. I turned my fan on and went back to sleep. I dreamed I was back in a factory where I worked over 10 years ago.

I'm at a workbench, and I'm picking up ice-cream sticks and putting them in a box, all the while getting splinters in my hands. My flesh crawls just thinking about it now. In the dream, I pulled out a gray colored sliver that resembled a tiny worm, but it hurt just like a sharp splinter would.

Then I have my tally for the day, and take it down to a place that looks like a concrete basement. I stop on stairs and before me are several women in the same bright blue colored jackets. I am the only Caucasian person here. This is strange because I live in a state that is predominantly Caucasian. I wait and see one woman who hands in her tally and gets down on her knees to pray and says, "Thank you Lord for this, whatever." then laughs, gets up and picks up a bright red purse.

There was more, but the memory of the rest faded.

What do you mean your "tally for the day"? I'm sure I've heard that before, Marcia probably knows what it means, is it like how long you worked that day?

Tally is the total number produced. If the standard is 5 boxes an hour and I pack 40 that day, then I made my tally, or quota for the day.

In the case of the dream however, I didn't even come close. I don't think I even made it through the first one. So I would have 1 in the number of boxes packed. Good thing I woke up when I did, I'd hate to get fired in my own dream.

The dream was sort of a nightmare too because you had to bust ass to make quota and got paid a lot less than what it was worth, especially because we were non-union and the owner of the company like to spend the profits on the horse races.

He sold the company about 5 years ago and now its moved its operation to China.

Do you think that might reflect how you're feeling in some parts of your life now, that you're doing a lot of work, or expending a lot of effort, for very little return? Or do you think it reflects your other fears about the way the country seems to be going?

Right now, I'm still on vacation until the 27th. So I haven't been doing much except enjoying the outdoors, going to the fair, hanging out with friends, swimming, reading, and spending time here. Ah, the good life.

My current job can be a bit stressful at time, but it's a vast improvement from where I came from which was manufacturing, where it's dog eat dog, long hours, and crappy pay.

The nightmare is the possibility of having to go back to a similar job once my tenure at the school is over, when the student graduates in 2009. The job where we wore the bright blue smocks is gone overseas, as did the one where I packed sticks. I have dreams off and on about being back in those places.

The part of the dream where the woman gets down on her knees reminds me of the right wing pundits in this country who think that people should be happy with the pay that their corporate employers give them. Right now in this country there's a divide between the working class and the very wealthy. The wealthy dominate the media. I feel she was black to represent the horrible treatment the hurricane evacuees got and are still receiving from the government. The victims were from the poor sector of New Orleans.

I could go on and on but you get the idea. The dream encompasses my inner thoughts about me and the state of the country.