Craig Baxter

I was writing dialogue in my dream last night and I felt it to be excellent, the final 3 lines of my play particularly. Of course I couldn’t remember it on waking besides the very last line which remains (even in the real world) pretty good. A character called Patrick says “Amen”

A fairly realistic dream in which I saw from my bedroom window a fighter jet and then two rusty iron missiles all heading in the same direction (left to right so, on reflection, that’s West). I woke up wondering where they were headed and if I’d hear about it later on the News

(I know there are a lot of arrogant assumptions in that dream … but that’s the current state of my subconscious… what can you do?)

Dream Damon Albarn wants me to sing on his new song, a sequel to Blur’s earlier hit, Tender. There’s a team of songwriters working on it in a shed and they are also in charge of invoicing (ie paying me). I start to worry that if this song’s a big hit, I may be obliged to go on tour with Gorrilaz

I had my first dream about Campus (which is an academic journal article tracking system). It was quite a dull dream actually

One that is definitely pre-string theory

Dream i’m washing up the dishes but in a sink that has four plugholes!

It occurred to me during a Zoom call today that these days I look like John Nott in 1982 when he walked out of the tv studio after Robin Day called him a “here today, gone tomorrow politician”. It’s a good look!

substack.com/@craigbaxter... Henry V part V (on stage directions)

I just read a whole chapter of a James Bond novel and it was just him talking to a young woman and she was telling him about her tough childhood and stuff. It was nice

Hard frost makes it an excellent day for collecting (nicely frozen) cat turds from the lawn. Same hard frost makes it a less excellent day for burying them

I am the fattest, oldest, weakest, slowest, ugliest man in the gym. But also the best

Dream/subconscious me has a sense of humour I hope you’ll agree: Dreamed I was controlling a drone helicopter in a corridor and got it to grip my cheek. Next I made a dramatic entry into a party and asked the gathered throng: “Do I have something on my face?” Hilarious!

Dream I’m staying with a delightful German family but the passcode for their WiFi is so impossibly long that I feel my life is slipping away from me and I have to leave

Dreamed my friend Steve dropped by to say goodbye (he’s going away) and show us the new dapper sleeveless coat he’d bought for £1 but I was quickly aware he wanted to spend a more lingering goodbye with our mutual friend Clare and that I should leave them to it

Dream we are drinking our own urine in bed and it tastes of “mortgages”

Is it insulting or a misogynistic micro-aggression to, as a chap, thank a lady for being a “gentleman” for holding a door open for you? I just did this and am now steeped in a vague feeling of shame and regret.

Yep me too

quesque c'est?

Dream I’m retrieving a retiring police officer’s bicycle from Cambridge railway station lost property 30 years after he left it there (after passing his probation and qualifying for a police car). We roll back the tarpaulin but there’s no bike. Only a broken, stringless bass guitar

I’ve been to Sainsbury’s recently but not Waitrose

Henry V Part 4 - A crossing: looking fore and aft Flourish.

open.substack.com/pub/craigbax...

Dream I’m sticking together with tape and glue the first half of my long poem. My plan (I’m excited) is to send it to Faber & Faber. Then I glance at the first lines and realise they are not good (or even poetry). I fold up my mess of scribbled over paper and tape and stuff it away in a drawer

I never enjoy those dreams in which a man goes wild with a machete in a shopping centre. Anyway I had one of those and could not get back to sleep. The subconscious me is not one of those have-a-go heroes but rather a terrified runner away. I suspect the conscious me would be similar

I dreamed I overheard a conversation between one of my bosses and their therapist in which they broke down in tears while expressing their overwhelming concern that they were letting me and the rest of the team down (moral: we must be more sympathetic to bosses; they have a tough job)

I almost went to the gym today

Back in with an “I’m driving and I can’t even drive” dream; I enter a white car through an opening in the roof (a ripped out sunroof); I’m having to drive it in dressing gown and ill-fitting slippers, avoiding numerous drifting pedestrians also in white dressing gowns and with towels on their heads

I wasn’t sure whether I should or, if I did, how I should describe my dream in which I’m bleeding from my arsehole but, anyway, I’ve done it now

These are probably all Christmas shopping anxiety dreams but in another I was struggling to unlock my bicycle from outside a Chinese supermarket which had just been robbed and trashed. The staff and investigating police officers were very smiley and relaxed considering

… against mine in a cheek-to-cheek pose. I was smiling (“warmly”)/she was tense and cross. Oh dear. I was only here by accident, having been looking for a grocery store selling milk and cheese. 2/2