Those of you who have been reading my humor columns for years probably already know about the 30-plus years I also spent as "The Dream Lady," interpreting people's dreams in my newspaper columns and live, on the radio. I also was offered the opportunity to appear on TV, but decided against it, mainly because a "friend" once told me I have the face for radio, not TV.
Anyway, the other night I was searching for something in my very cluttered office (and I still haven't found it) and I came across a plastic box that contained floppy disks from my old word processor; a machine that weighed about 50 lbs. and took up most of the kitchen table.
Immediately, curiosity hit me and I just had to know what was on those disks. Fortunately I still have a floppy-disk drive that plugs into my laptop's USB port, so I decided to give it a try.
To my surprise, I actually found it. And an even bigger surprise...it worked.
The disks contained a lot of my old newspaper columns, articles and even some drawings I'd scanned and stored on them.
Then I came to a disk that was filled with what I'd thought many years ago was a great idea - a comic strip about dreams! There were over 30 of the comic strips on it, all rough drafts I'd painstakingly sketched on paper. I'd then added the dialogue using the word processor, and finally scanned them onto the disk...no easy task. But I'd convinced myself my concept was so fresh and innovative, I'd soon be right up there with the likes of Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame and Jim Davis, creator of Garfield.
The only "slight" problem was I knew nothing about drawing comic-strip characters. Still, that didn't deter me. I feverishly worked at sketching my ideas for hours. I figured I could polish my skills afterwards, when I would add colors and shading...and hopefully make my artwork (and I use the term loosely) look more professional.
The only good thing about my project was I had over 30 years of people's "unique" dreams to use for subject matter, so I knew I'd never lack for something to feature in my comic strip. Even if I lived to be 100, I was certain I'd still have enough dreams left to last another 20 years.
Alas, as I sat in my office the other night, studying all of the comic strips on that floppy disk, I didn't know whether to groan or to laugh...so I ended up doing both. I groaned at the absolutely terrible artwork and laughed at the ridiculous dreams, even though all of them were condensed versions of actual dreams people had sent to me to be interpreted.
So, before I tuck the disk back into its box where it probably will remain until the next time I decide to clean my office, which is never, I thought I'd select a few of the comic strips to share with you so you also might have a few laughs (or groans). After all, I didn't suffer through all of those obsessive hours of creativity back then only to never show the results of my efforts to anyone...even though I'm pretty sure that might be a wise idea.
Looking back, I think the "Dream Lady" might have had a lot in common with Don Quixote...dreaming the impossible dream...especially in this case!
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