dream sabbatical

last saturday i had a dream that i was in a car with an older cousin who is a writer, her daughter who has the most amazing sense of humor, a couple of friends who want to be writers and have acquired some form of humor in the process of becoming, a husband who i think is secretly laughing at us, finding humor in everything "writerly" that we do, and another friend who doesn't want to call herself a groupie, because she isn't, really. it was raining and we were on our way to valle verde 5, to attend a party with other writers. in my dream there were bridges and flyovers. tall buildings and wet cars. very phallic symbols all. then when we got to the party, even more symbols: the host was already in the middle of a cold pilsen with another writer friend of theirs. we then arranged ourselves in some lacanian order around the freudian table. a nice lady in an apron served us a round of good old san miguel. in a while, dinner - really good food, too - was served and we moved to the bigger dining table, and i think one of the writers addressed me and gave me a random writerly advise, and then went on ahead with dinner. then one by one, more writers arrived, bearing something cold, hard, and phallic wrapped in brown paper (wine lang pala), and joined us at the table. then we, the younger ones, had to (or just felt like we had to) remove ourselves from the table, and so soon found ourselves at the kiddie table, gulping down whatever was offered to us. then, cut to: int. 1 am, sunday, in our living room, table in the middle, more bottles of beer, tanduay, me and cousin and friends laughing and laughing, talking and talking, congratulating dear allan pastrana, bitching about some other postmodern kuno dude, hardly making any sense. then, cut to: ext. 545 am, sunday, outside the st. luke's emergency room, my niece's middle finger black and blue and swollen. cut to: int. emergency room, some eight doctors trying to remove a silver ring from a badly swollen finger, with pliers, and other impossible tools. cut to: ext. 640 am, sunday, international airport, goodbye hugs and kisses. cut to: int. verite office, monday night, blogging, trying to ignore pile of books and thesis materials... wait, those weren't dream images, they really happened. oh, how lame. but thanks, sir krip, gracious host. goodbye dear cousins, bringer of funny stories. hail st. luke's doctors, most of whom had the most idiotic ideas about how to remove the ring, but never lacked in earnestness and sincerity.
;-)

yeah, the whole month of july did seem like a dream. i only wrote 3 of the 30-page quota i had set for myself. and now it's august and i have barely two weeks to produce the whole draft. i have already texted some friends that i'll be going on a month and a half sabbatical leave. so, see you guys in september. preserve some of your livers for your marathon drinking sessions with me.