Of Skivvies and Feminists

You have heard of the cookie-cutter dream where you stand in front of people in your underwear, or forget your lines for a play or speech, always in front of a large group of people, possibly friends and loved ones. You are hamlet or Romeo, or Ophelia or Juliet, and you flub. You are at a total loss, and everyone knows.

I had a dream similar, yet different. It was at school, and many people were on stage. There was a clamor for each student as he or she went to the front to say a piece. The words they spoke had no sound and no meaning to me. I was in the audience, in the rightmost grouping of seats, but near the edge of the group, so my position was middle-right of the stage. I realized the next person that was stepping to the microphone on stage was me. I didn't see me, not any physical aspects, but I knew it was me. I began to speak and the audience listened without a peep.

Four sentences into my stage-self's speech, it stopped. It's mouth continued to move but no words came out. I knew and everybody else knew that there was no way any more would come out. I could feel the rush of blood to the face and the contraction of organs that come with this scope of public embarrassment. It was me, and I was it.

Worse yet, everybody knew that I, the person in the audience, was also the person on the stage. There was no laughing, but people shifted in their seats and coughed and looked around, trying not to meet my stage-self's eyes. At the same time, the audience and my friends avoided looking at me, the audience me.

Then I awoke and turned my alarm off. I didn't think about it anymore, but I still remember it. Who knows what it means, perhaps nothing, perhaps a release of emotion that I don't get while awake. We face this kind of thing on a minuscule scale daily, but why is such a dream so very common? Is it a fear of public humiliation, or being the center of attention?

Changing gears.

Just yesterday I submitted a story for review to a Literary Magazine. I'll keep the name to myself, but before submitting I read about the magazine, as I do. There were a couple of things that surprised or scared me.

First, instead of "Our goals" or "Mission Statement" they had "Manifesto." It talked about them as a magazine. Second, in the obligatory dos and don'ts of submitting a piece, a don't was "Address us as 'Dear Sirs' -- we know you don't mean to cause offense, but we are not male, and also we are feminists. We prefer 'Dear Fiction/Nonfiction/ Poetry/ Etc Editor.'" Hmmmmmmmmm.

Third, and this was the most off-putting, was another don't: "Tell us who your literary influences are. This can be a turn-off, which makes it harder to give your piece the fair reading it deserves. Remember, it may happen that your most venerated literary fore bearers typify all we loathe about the hetero patriarchal canon. Also, Burroughs and Hemingway influenced everyone."

Did you see that phrase? Hetero patriarchal canon. Talk about a turn-off, ladies. I don't know who Burroughs is and Hemingway is boring, by the way.

The entire article on cover letters didn't make a lot of sense, but I submitted my short story for publication review. I'm okay with it being published in the magazine, even if I won't be paid. But I guess dos and don'ts of writing are better when you can actually write.



And just because I think it's cool, I know how to play the first 16 notes of "Bridge Across Forever" on piano.