Rant #2,190: Welcome to My Nightmare

Yes, this column is really late today.

Late if 5:30 a.m. in the morning is late for you.

It certainly is for me, about an hour later than normal, because I overslept by an hour last night.

Let me tell you, I was pooped last week.

It was very busy at work (a good thing, actually), and I awaited the weekend like those in need await a heart transplant.

It took a long time coming, because the week dragged, and when it was finally Friday, I had to do some chores after work that delayed my arriving home by about 90 minutes.

The weekend was relatively calm, which was good, although I did have some chores to do on both Saturday and Sunday.

But I kept on feeling that I was still as tired as could be, even though I slept relatively well on Friday night and Saturday night.

But last night, I did not sleep well, not at all, for a variety of reasons.

I first fell asleep at about 8:30 p.m. on Sunday night while watching the replay of the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony, held yesterday in Cooperstown, New York.

Then, at about 11 p.m., I was awakened by an errant phone call, of which we are getting more and more in the middle of the night--from about 10:30 p.m. to about 2 a.m. in the morning--during the past few weeks. Whoever calls always hangs up, and this is a problem in itself.

Anyway, I could not go back to sleep, so what I did is that I left the cool with air conditioning bedroom to the hot living room, where I tried to fall asleep on a chair that we have in that part of the house that has the leg portion lift up. It is comfortable as an emergency bed, and I usually fall back asleep when I use it for that purpose.

No, this time it did not work, so after about a half hour, I went back into the bedroom.

I fell back asleep in there, but I then experienced a nightmare that probably continued for a few hours, even though at about 1:30 a.m. in the morning, I once again got up and went into the living room to sleep.

Here is what I remember from the nightmare. It was enough to send chills up my spine.

I got another job, at some type of publishing firm with many employees and based in Manhattan. I went to work the first day, and they put me with a group of writers/reporters.

I was given an assignment that was not to my liking, not explained and boring. I made several calls, but I could not hear what people were saying because of the din of noise that was in this room with so many workers.

It was lunchtime, and I went outside, and decided to leave the company and get this--return to my old place of work!

I called my former employer--in real life. my current one--and told them I was coming back. They said that was fine, but they warned me that the last person they paid had money taken out of some type of special account to get paid. In other words, they had no money to pay anyone, or at least had to search around for a payment source for their workers.

I told them that was fine, I told my new employer that I was leaving, and I took the Long Island Railroad back home.

One problem--I was naked. I had no clothes, so I called my mother to meet me at Roosevelt Field, one of the most famous of all the Long Island Shopping Malls--which is in Garden City. In real life, my train does not venture near Garden City--in Western Nassau County--but in my dream it did.

The train reached Garden City, I disembarked from the train, and somehow (I don't remember how), I got to my mother, who brought clothes to me.

And that is all I remember from this nightmare, which lasted a few hours and even continued after I got up and moved into the living room to sleep.

And when I opened my eyes, I was met with a real life nightmare--it was about an hour later than I normally get up during weekdays.

I hurriedly took a shower, ate breakfast and came to my computer, and here I am now typing this thing out for you.

Yes, the realities of my job are playing on my mind, and it is never a pretty picture, and this one sure wasn't.

What it all means is another story, but I think it revolves around confidence.

With the impeding doom that I feel I will soon experience, I guess I am starting to doubt myself and my abilities.

You get that way when you apply for more than 400 jobs during the past nearly two years and you get a sum total of one face to face interview and a handful of phone interviews, and that is it to show for your hard work.

Don't get out the violins, but I guess it is depressing.

Last week, I was told by a fellow worker that the CEO of our company was shredding hundreds of documents during the day, and I think that played on my mind as another nail in the coffin, just a few days after being told that one of the books that I work on has ceased to exist after decades of existence.

I try not to think about it during the day while awake, but once I go to sleep, all bets are off.

So, welcome to my nightmare, which although it was in my dreams last night, it is so real to me that I am even dreaming about it.

So that is why I overslept, and that is why this column is relatively late,

I hope to have a much better sleep tonight, more restful and certainly happier.

We can dream, can't we?