Inspiration always strikes me at about midnight though, when I’m trying to wind down from the day and catch some sleep so I can do it all over again. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep as I kept thinking about rewriting my prologue as far as it has gotten at any rate. This is part of my problem, I get into writing something then go back and read it and realize it’s horrible then start over again. I must have started this book twenty plus times. Then I had some weird dreams to top it all off. I don’t recall them other than the feeling I was left with when I woke up. I don’t think they were nightmares but somehow I get the feeling they weren’t sugar fairies and candy kisses. I actually have two recurring nightmares. One is about having to go back to high school and finish a class, regardless of the diploma I have neatly stashed in some forgotten corner. I remember sitting in some classes but most of the time is spent wandering the halls and stairways. I can picture vividly certain classrooms, the library, the cafeteria, the auditorium. While the dreams aren’t necessarily traumatic it’s the overwhelming sense of dread in having to return there. High school wasn’t all bad. I was friendly with people, certainly not popular, but I felt much like background noise. Just someone there, neither famous or infamous enough to be worth recognizing. I suppose it could be worse, I just don’t remember it fondly. Why I can’t say, there just doesn’t seem to be anything special for me. I suppose it was because I was so self conscious for the majority of high school I felt as though everyone was watching, judging. I do not envy teenagers.
My second recurring nightmare… well I suppose it’s really a dream, just not a pleasant one. I call them nightmares because that’s the closest I can come to describing thier impact. Anyway, it’s the same sense of dread of having to go back, but this time it’s too my last job. I worked for SAGE for 5 years. I won’t say it was wasted time. I learned a lot about software and hardware in the computing world and made some good friends. The calls though, oh god the calls. I answered technical support phone calls for a specific kind of accounting software. I can tell you all about depreciation. Things not even the professionals need to know. It’s horribly boring and tedious, and the worst part is the people you have to talk to on a daily basis. I would say accountants but most of the calls were with data entry clerks who were told to figure out why reports didn’t match up. Add to this thick foreign accents and you have a recipe for migraines and a penchant for hitting things. I loathed and despised this job, mainly because the company in it’s infinite corporate wisdom decided to consistently make our jobs more miserable. Oh not only were we expected to answer these idiosyncratic ramblings framed as questions but we had o sell these people on services and products. Let me tell you something right now if you are under any illusion of running a support department this way. You do not hire Techies to sell a product, no more so than you would hire a salesman to troubleshoot a novell network over rconsole. It’s just stupid. What made it worse is that our performance was based on how well we could sell through lead generation. Now I believe anyone can be taught to sell, but here’s the thing. Your support department knows just how crappy your product is. Do you really think they’re going to be able to sell a product they know is garbage? Some people can, more power to you soulless automatons preying on the meek and uninformed. I tried my hand at sales and was fairly competent when I could believe in the product I was selling.
Can you feel the anxiety? Already I have a knot in my neck just from thinking about all this. I suppose it’s circular, I seem to have these dreams when I’m feeling troubled by something else and afterward my mood is not greatly improved by reliving these highlight reels in my head. I wish that by writing all this out it would for once exorcise these ghosts, but I know from long experience that I am likely to be haunted regardless. It could be worse though. I keep telling myself that and eventually I’ll be right 
