Dreams can be fleeting, with just the smallest flecks of images and color left in your mind when the morning comes. Others stay with you, filling your mind with visions that you try to fill in and stitch together to make the dream more coherent.
Last night, I dreamt of zombies. Not the zombies of "Thriller" with their orchestrated dance moves. Not the zombies of "Night of the Living Dead" or "Dawn of the Dead" by George Romero. Not even the zombies of "Shaun of the Dead", a brilliant meld of intelligent humor and bloody horror.
These zombies were...organizing.
Humans have been trying to interpret and analyze what dreams really means since the dawn of time. Some cultures believe understanding dreams allow you to more fully understand the meaning of life. Thought to be messages from the gods, profound and significant dreams were submitted to the Roman Senate for analysis and interpretation.
Dream interpretation is certainly not an exact science. Read enough books or web pages and you will find that zombies in dreams have several theoretical meanings, such as the mindless acceptance of ideas, an unquestioning nature, a tired listless state.
Organizing Zombies...try interpreting that.
Typically is it the survivors that are organizing after a catastrophic event. Survivors come together as a group, a de facto leader emerges and a plan developed, changed and altered again and again to fit the circumstances. Even the best documented survival plan is only good for a while, then you need to work out the details on your own. I can only imagine the same would apply to a zombie apocalypse.
I wish more details of the dream were still available to me. Within five minutes of the end of a dream about half the content is forgotten, and by the ten minute mark about 90% is gone. If the content of dreams reflects aspects of memory consolidation taking place during the different stages of sleep, what memories was I consolidating that lead to organizing zombies? What were the purposes of their organizing? Don't zombies live in the here and now? If so, why were they planning for future opportunities?
I tried to go back to sleep to recover more zombies-related thoughts, hoping for dream recurrence, but no more walking dead entered my sleep. I did dream of cake, which carries a much simpler interpretation: I want cake. Today, I will have cake. And avoid organizing zombies, just in case.
My life has been filled with books. I don't remember my introduction to what has become a life-long captivation with the magic of reading. The memory of Charlotte's Web is firm, but why I wanted to read it is lost in time. Perhaps it was the attraction of comic books, stories with words and pictures, the structure of a story with multiple visuals. Maybe it was being read to as a child, helping to build my vocabulary and to learn the connection between the written and printe
d word. Whatever the reason, whoever it was that put a book in my hands, I am thankful for the experience.
Amazon.com has announced that sales numbers for e-books have outsold regular book sales 105 to 100 since April 1st of this year. Physical books have taken a backseat to digital versions. As one book reviewer wrote, it was Kindle vs. kindling and e-books have won.
Does it matter how we get our reading material? The reading itself is the larger goal. Books we read help to develop our ability to think critically. We explore their content in our own imagination, bound by the magic of a good author.
Despite e-books becoming the norm, I am slow to switch from print to pixels, from my fingers feeling the paper pages to feeling plastic, from dog-earring pages to electronic bookmarks. I appreciate the wealth of knowledge available electronically, but I miss the tactile aspect of a physical book, one you can curl up with to take to the local coffee shop. Mostly what I miss is the smell of a good book, the lignin in the paper breaking down and smelling like vanilla, that heady scent filling used bookstores and creating a hunger in all of us.
If you are like me, you spend more time reading news online than in the paper. It is easy to open a browser and have the world news at your fingertips. With sometimes instant updates and differing perspectives, the wealth of news available is almost beyond comprehension.
At the same time, onlin
e news outlets don't seem to give the big picture, the true depth that some stories require. The frenetic pace of going from breaking story to breaking story, the world coming apart at the seams with the click of a mouse.
Newspapers aren't frantic. They don't carry the less important news, the items that make up so much electronic fodder. They carry the stuff that actually matters. Reading the newspaper takes time, and during that period you get the whole story and realize the apocalypse is not about to happen.
For me and Cindy, the Sunday paper is a ritual. The rustle of the pages, a cup of steaming coffee, not having to go to work. My weekend isn't complete unless it involves the Sunday paper. It may only be an hour or so, but it is time well spent.
Life moves fast. Take time to slow down and enjoy it. Switch from pixilated fonts to printed fonts and read the Sunday paper. After all, comics are far superior in a newspaper than online any day.
It was not the first job interview I ever had, but it was the most memorable. As a recent college graduate, I interviewed for quite a few jobs. I was gaining experience at how interviewing worked, what questions were typical, how to respond without too many "ummms" and "aahhs". I was becoming discouraged, as my college degree was opening doors but my lack of experience was shutting them in my face. I put on my interview suit, the one my paternal grandparents bought me after I graduated from college, and walked in to another nondescript office in another nondescript company and waited my turn.
I don't remember most of the interview. What I do recall is telling the interviewer at the end of our time that I hoped to see her again soon, something I had not said at the conclusion of any other interview. Perhaps it was because it actually sounded like I could fulfill their requirements. Maybe it was that she was about my age, a first in the bevy of interviews I had gone through. It was, more than likely, due to her bright blue eyes and her nice smile.
And so it came to pass that I was offered the job. My first real job lead to my first apartment, my first non-department store credit card and, eventually, to my first and only wife. It was Cindy who interviewed me, whose smile intoxicated me, who, as my supervisor, should have been verboten to me. I was young and didn't know you weren't supposed to fish off the company pier, especially with your boss. Ignorance was definitely bliss, as I eventually asked her out and she accepted.
The rest, as they say, is history. We were married on May 10, 1986. It has been twenty-five years since we said "I do" to each other. Life has thrown us curve balls, handed us lemons and dropped a wrench in the machinery on many occasions. It has taught us to never take for granted the moments we have shared, to learn to live with intensity and how completely we have learned to love.
Cindy Lane, I love you for who you were, who you are and who you will become. Thanks for putting up with me over the years and the years yet to come.
These zombies were...organizing.
