Too obvious

Back in the old days of psychoanalysis in NYC (part of what I considered my real-life audition to be a character in one of Woody Allen's New York-set movies - living on the Upper West Side and seeing an analyst), we used to talk about dreams - like some other aspects of psychoanalysis, I didn't take "dream analysis" too seriously - I found it more an interesting intellectual exercise to see what my sleeping mind had drawn out of my daily experience and how it had transformed it.  I still do think about my dreams, when I remember them, to see what I make of them, but sometimes things are just way too obvious.

Last night I dreamt that Jerry and I were at a home store, a "Despot" (as he called the Home Depot), or something of that sort.  I was waiting outside while Jerry went in to get a small rug - me waiting out in the car while Jerry ran in to a Despot to pick up something he needed in the shop was a common enough occurrence on our commutes down to the cabinet shop in Elgin.  In the dream, I was standing by the door, dressed for work in an office.  And I saw a woman walk by wearing jeans and tan work boots, and I felt a pang of envy.  Then Jerry emerged from the store, not with a small rug, but with a dark green towel, saying that was all they had.

Not too hard to imagine this has to do with anxiety over today's interview for an office job, and taking yet another step farther from the past 11 years of wearing jeans and work boots every day (black Doc Martens, however, not tan, for what that's worth - haven't had tan work boots since my feet got too wide for the Timberlands I got while I was in college) to work in the cabinet shop.  The rug?  Last week I bought a small rug to put under the chair in front of my desk, since I noticed the chair legs were beginning to wear the finish on the wooden floor.  And I realized it was the first bit of home decorating I've done on my own since Jerry died, the first thing in this house, besides new clothes I've bought and food and the like, that he will never see.  The dark green towel?  That was Jerry's hand towel at the shop - Seamus and I eventually used it to wrap the box from the funeral home that contained Jerry's ashes, to keep it from rattling around in the urn, and the towel is still in the urn now, among the other keepsakes that are in there so far.

So, there we have it.

The interview in Des Plaines went okay, at least from my perspective.  I spoke to three different people.  Getting there was fine, but then again it wasn't rush hour.  The only glitches were a blocked ramp onto I-90 that forced me to go west a bunch before I could go east, and missing an exit onto Touhy Avenue that I still can't see how I could have made, but thankfully Nuvi kicked in and took me back using the next exit, and I got there in something like 45 minutes, with time to spare before the interview time.  No clue what that commute would be in rush hour (and without the detour).

They're interviewing a few other people.  There was no discussion of salary, benefits, hours - I figure I'll deal with that if it comes to it.  I do think it's a job I'd be comfortable taking, all other things being equal. Not thrilled with the commute, of course.  Not thrilled with not working at Wood Bros. with Jerry, though, so absolutely everything these days is an adjustment to changes I don't want.