Were this a private diary that I could hide in my room, I would freely pour out multiple tales of personal woe, many involving work. But this is a public soapbox, and therefore I will exercise restraint because having a job is a good thing, mostly.
Which is a shame because some of my office stories would make you laugh. Hell, I’m coming off of a vacation so even I can giggle. Ah… the restorative power of vacation! The skin clears, the eyes brighten, the smile perks. The mundane becomes novel. The noose slackens. I’m laid-back about life and able to “put things in perspective.”
Another side effect of vacation is that my dreams intensify. When there’s no alarm, no nagging to-dos, no immediate tasks upon waking, dreams become vivid movies with elaborate, almost Byzantine, storylines. I awake still absorbed with the drama, comedy, or tragedy that my mind just staged. It haunts me for hours.
“So I had this dream last night,” I’ll begin telling Mr. Pinault over breakfast.
“Again?” he says in disbelief.
Then the vacation ends and I return to work. Gradually, my nighttime entertainment peters out. Dreams are neither good nor bad, they’re just vague impressions of a locality or an object that are forgotten as soon as my feet hit the floor.
Since I’ve only been back for a week, I still have vestiges of the vacation magic pumping through my veins. Recently I had a very realistic dream: I’m in the basement of my office building, waiting for the elevator. I had just picked up a lunch from Cosi (a large lentil soup) and I’m nibbling on the accompanying piece of Cosi flatbread. Because it’s lunchtime, the elevator is taking a long time. I can hear it “ding” several floors above the the basement, and loud voices funnel down the shaft to me. They are the familiar voices of men who I have known for 7 years. The elevator stops again on the lobby level, and the voices grow louder. One voice raises above the din of male hooting: “Did you see how her tits were flapping around!” which rouses other snippets of vulgar exaltation. The elevator door opens and I am staring at the occupants of the elevator, whose faces register surprise and embarrassment. “Did you hear that?” one asks me as they file out sheepishly. I say nothing but cannot stop smiling in abject horror at having heard my colleagues objectify a woman with tawdry slang on the elevator, which everyone knows leaks sound like an earbud.
But like I said, it was only a dream. (If it wasn’t a dream, would I really be writing about it?)
