Flood, fire, car wreck, you name it

It all seems to be happening to me, at least in a tame sort of way.

Yesterday the hiring manager set up a lunch appointment with me today to give me “feedback.” Normally, this guy’s English is not good enough for the subtlety of the word “feedback” which would be normally interpreted as “you didn’t get the job, but I’m going to give you some nice words to make you and me feel better.” But he might mean it that way. Maybe his English has improved since we last worked together regularly.

As I dealt with the emotions of “Waahh! I didn’t get it!” and “Boy I dodged a bullet!” or “Cool! I got it!” and simple ambivalence as well, I decided the best option was to retreat into the bathtub for a nice long soak with love music playing.

Cue love music CD, two kinds of bubble bath, scented candles from Crabtree & Evelyn, a special piece of chocolate and an Oprah magazine with plenty of positive affirmations. Aaaahhhh, into the 38 degree C water, with bubbles teetering dangerously over the edge of the tub. Lounge, lounge, lounge, soak, soak, soak, read, read, read.

Slightly adjust the magazine on the rack. Whoops! it flips, landing flat on the water. Grab magazine out of water, hold it too close to the candle, magazine starts to burn. The candle tilts ominously in its holder, then goes too far, spilling wax all over the magazine, my belly and the tub. End of bath. Forgot all about the chocolate.

Making the best of a messy situation, I eat a sandwich for dinner and go to bed. Unfortunately I have a teleconference scheduled with Singapore at 4 a.m. the next morning and I sleep fitfully, but do at least get about 4 hours in.

Meeting time. I drag myself out of bed, pull on my robe and head to the computer and phone. Join the teleconference. Wait for it to start. Doesn’t start. Get off phone, send email to my boss, who is in Singapore at the moment. After about 15 minutes, she lets me know we’ll be starting any minute now. 45 minutes later, I get an email saying the meeting has been moved to 10 a.m. my time. The auditor is sick, got sick on the airplane coming to Singapore.

Back to bed. Fall asleep nicely, not obsessing too much about the job I’m going to hear about in 5 hours. Start dreaming. I’m at a condo resort, and walking across the parking lot. A car comes up behind me with a guy in brown hair driving. He literally pushes up against me with his car, and I turn around and give him an exasperated look. He keeps pushing until I’m up against a truck parked just ahead of us. Slowly he back off, but my shirt is caught on his car.

Flash forward to a highway. I’m driving, not too fast, then I fall asleep. I wake up moments later and see cars having accidents all over the place ahead of me. I dodge and manuever until I come safely to rest near the median, facing a large dump truck turned around to face me. As I look forward, I see that the highway has become dirt, and leads to a highway bridge. We are heading toward the bridge, but I am determined not to get stuck on the bridge in case it collapses. I back off until my car is safely on dirt and not on the bridge.

There’s nothing Freudian in that dream, is there?

Off to work.