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Last night I dreamed I was a part-time logger.

I had all these trees that I had to shove into this giant machine that acted kind of like a Salad Shooter*, and it sliced the trunks into thin cross-sections, like a giant stack of pennies, and then coated each cross-section with a film of hot, black tar. The tar itself was kept in a giant vat on top of the machine, and each time the machine rattled away chopping trees, the tar would splash down and get all over the surrounding area (which was a residential street curb, by the by, my logging being only part-time, and thus apparently a thing I did in my own dream world front yard). Also, due perhaps to my status as a part-timer, I lacked a proper helmet or gloves in this dream, and much of the falling tar landed on my face and arms, where it stuck and burned horrifically.

I say all of this as a way of explaining why I woke up last night, shoving at my husband's sleeping embrace and shouting "Ow! It BURNS!"

*My mother-in-law gave me a Salad Shooter for Christmas last year and I was having a high old time making cracks about its pistol-like grip, how it was like a vegetable six-shooter, when the friend I was talking to replied icily that it was her favorite kitchen gadget.

Anyway, as often happens when my dreaming brain is not content that it has had the last word, the dream picked up again after he and I rearranged ourselves into an altered (read: him cowering on the bed's far side) sleeping position, and the Salad Shooter logging truck then popped its parking break and roared off backwards down the street, plowing into a neighbor's parked car and arcing boiling black tar all over the neighbor's house. In the dream, I am responsible for $120 in damages, which is obviously a deflated price, and points to the immaturity of my subconscious. You can't even replace a headlight for that much.

I'm writing about this dream for the thinnest of reasons (I'm avoiding more pressing tasks), but also because thematically, it's nagging at me. It's a thematic departure from most of my anxiety dreams, and it comes at the tail end of a truly awful week in which I dreamed that 1) an anonymous email circulated among our friends with a bulleted list of my character flaws, including the chilling entry, "Rachel needs to learn to keep her fucking mouth shut," 2) my parents suddenly decided they were swingers, and 3) I accidentally acquired about seven more facial piercings that all became intertwined in my sleep.

Honestly, what am I supposed to do with this stuff? Is any therapeutic neurological function being served here, or am I just stuck getting junk emails from an angry subconscious? As I writer, I'd love to be able to say I get any kind of material from this nightly flood of adrenaline and imagery, but mostly I think I'm just a pain in the ass to sleep near.

The punchline is: EXPLOSIONS!

My dad's a superintendent on an oil rig and I imagine part of his job is making sure that any number of people make it through the day without getting crushed or incinerated or otherwise murdered by their own negligence around giant, pulverizing machinery.

He is also apparently a subscriber to a regular email list that sends out periodic alerts about hidden safety threats in daily life, which he then generously forwards to the family. Recent topics included static electricity while pumping gas at the gas station (shock + fumes = EXPLOSION), the hazards of driving while texting (negligence + traffic = wrecks and EXPLOSIONS), and the danger of microwaving a beverage in a certain type of ceramic mug (somehow = EXPLOSION).

I appreciate these. I really do. They show me he's thinking about us and is concerned for our safety. But sometimes the reality that Pants spends his whole day square dancing all over the line between safe and reasonable activities the Edge of Death is too hard to forget, and then to think that I could kill us both just as quickly by reheating my tea in the wrong mug? Jesus.

This week's theme is kitchen grease fires. Note the contrast between the neutral and bemused tone of my dad's note at the top and the grizzled, explosion-weary voice of the fire safety officer:

"Pretty interesting and dramatic video. I think it's worth taking the time to watch and think about the contents. R.S. Don't look for a punchline - there isn't one.

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING BEFORE YOU WATCH THE VIDEO!! This is a dramatic video (30-second, very short) about how to deal with a common kitchen fire ...oil in a frying pan. Read the following Introduction, then watch the show ...It's a real eye-opener!!

At the Fire Fighting Training school they would demonstrate this with a deep fat fryer set on the fire field. An instructor would don a fire suit and using an 8 oz cup at the end of a 10-foot pole toss water onto the grease fire. The results got the attention of the students. The water, being heavier than oil, sinks to the bottom where it instantly becomes superheated. The explosive force of the steam blows the burning oil up and out. On the open field, it became a thirty-foot high fireball that resembled a nuclear blast.

Inside the confines of a kitchen, the fireball hits the ceiling and fills the entire room. Also, do not throw sugar or flour on a grease fire. One cup of either creates the explosive force of two sticks of dynamite.

This is a powerful message----watch the video and don't forget what you see."

Unfortunately, the file format of the attached video doesn't work on my computer, so the threat of nuclear fireballs in my kitchen still looms. But then my brother responded:

"Hey Dad,

Good to hear from you. I hope things on the rig are going well (safe!). I'm looking forward to seeing you and Mom in November and am thinking of things to do once you guys get up here.

Unfortunately, I was unable to watch the video in the email you sent as I was driving in interstate traffic when I received the notification on my phone that I had new mail in my inbox. After taking my eyes off the road for several seconds in order to navigate to my Hotmail account, I took the time (still while driving in interstate traffic) to begin to formulate my response to your message. In between glancing up and down from my phone to the road, the gas gauge caught my eye and I realized I was almost out of gas. I took the next exit and continued responding to your email via my phone while I pumped gas into the tank of my car.

Once that was done, I continued driving back to my house while texting several friends and phoning several more (I put my email to you on hold, hope you don't mind). After I arrived at home, I purchased a number of items online utilizing my debit card, canceled my doctor's appointment to receive my flu shot, booked a trip to Mexico for February (airline tickets purchased online via debit card), and started to cook dinner.

The recipe called for a pan seared chicken breast so I filled a skillet with oil and began to heat it on high. It was at this moment that I realized I didn't have a chicken breast! I left the skillet on high heat and ducked out of the house for a quick trip to the grocery store. After purchasing the chicken breast, I arrived back home, tossed it in the well heated skillet (without rinsing the breast under water first), and cooked a fabulous dinner.

Feeling sated and satisfied, I started to get the sleepies and decided to retire for the evening. It's a little chilly up here, so I turned on my gas space heater and huddled under my synthetic comforter. When I was just on the verge of sleep, my carbon monoxide monitor started to beep. Apparently, the battery was low. I knew there was no way I was getting to sleep with that obnoxious beeping carrying on all night, so I hopped out of bed and removed the monitor's batteries.

I woke up this morning feeling happy, safe, and refreshed. Ahhhhhhhhhh.......

Love you, Dad ;)"

My contribution to the discussion? Unintentionally Hilarious Work Safety Videos.

Well-intentioned safety warnings + sarcasm and smart-assery = EXPLOSION!!

Ghost Vault

God, I feel good.

I just spent half an hour doing my favorite thing in the world: throwing stuff out. It was all work-related stuff, stuff accumulated since the mid-eighties by a long distant reign of secretaries whose malevolent spirits linger in my office like stale farts. I'd come to accept them, make peace with their clamoring piles of junk as long as it was all was neatly labeled and locked away in two hulking file cabinets that are taller than me, even when I wear the don't-talk-down-to-me heels. But there has been a changing of the guard recently, and a tiny new woman in her own set of power heels is apparently made as sad and dispirited by junk as I am. She whirled in this morning, all hopped up on caffeine and kitted out in a navy blue blazer and matching skirt, and together we murdered 19 years-worth of illegibly scribbled, lovingly collected complaints. I felt like letting out a war whoop, or hanging a frayed file folder from my hip like a trophy scalp.

Yesterday as I drove home and checked out the progress of the stoop-crop harvesters in the squash fields along 41, I heard a story on NPR about E.L. Doctorow writing a new novel based on the Collyer brothers, who died in their New York apartment surrounded by giant stacks of hoarded junk. The idea of it makes me short of breath. All that crap, slowly strangling out all the light and air, bit by bit making it more difficult to move.

This morning I found two whole hanging file folders full of scraps of legal paper covered in frustrated doodles-- the word "flowers" festooned with curlicues, "wants forms" orphaned from its subject way out in a margin, a former secretary's rather ridiculous first name written over and over in various cursive scripts. Is it an overstatement to say this both fascinates and terrifies me?

I have had several state jobs over the years, and one of the accepted characteristics about this line of work, some might call it a strength, is the idea of stability. (I should say that this idea is being sorely challenged right now). But as I've come to understand, you need to actually kill someone, on the clock, in the office, and before witnesses to whom you've directly stated your intent, to get fired. Given this immunity from consequence, it's been a continual fascination for me to watch how some state employees go about putting down massive and elaborate root systems, sometimes quite literally making themselves a home of their current job and office. "Empire building" is another word.

For someone who moves all the time, who must continually make account of the orbit of stuff that keeps her tied to the earth, this kind of hoarding is close to panic-inducing. Half of the work of moving for me is imaginative work-- I have to imagine a place for all my stuff in each new location, and only after I've built this new and temporary fiction of "home" can I begin to pretend I can put my full weight down in it. It's just easier to stay light and really need and like the stuff you keep. Also, I've never been able to let go of the responsibility of knowing someone else will occupy the space in which I currently find myself, so there's no point in 1) trashing it or 2) becoming overly attached or invested. Obscene security deposits also help me remember this.

So this morning I feel like we cleaned out a truly pathological weight on the office. It was by no means the only one-- we have a storage room that's an absolute abomination-- but it was like that vault they kept the ghosts in in "Ghostbusters." It was full of pissed off sighs and under-the-breath mutterings and promises of administrative revenge, and I feel so much better, so, so much better, that these cabinets will finally be hauled away, and the view to the windows finally unobstructed.