January 12, 2012


Dream at waking: I am called upon to be a substitute French professor. One must wear an elaborate academic gown for this. I borrow the gown, teach the first class, which I think goes rather well. In the dream I congratulate myself for the miraculous retention of my 10th grade French. The college is my dream college, which has appeared several times; it’s like a gigantic version of my elementary school. But for the second section things are confused. I have trouble getting into the gown this time, and my hands are full of things when I start down the corridor, and I can’t look up the room number, so I start peeking into every room, to see if there are students waiting. I am waylaid in the hall by someone who wants to have sex with me. I am having the sex, wondering to what degree I wanted it and to what degree it is a rape. Then I wake.

Prodigious writing yesterday. Wrote in a new style which I may have invented, or if not that, certainly never used before. My story “The First Full Night of Winter” was “one of the top ten finalists” in Ruminate Magazine’s fiction contest. The note even gives me the name of the man I should excoriate for not giving it the prize– though, in truth, I have no recollection of either the magazine or the submission.