I wrote this message to my brother this morning:

Try not to be alarmed, but I dreamed you died last night. Or that you had previously died in another dream and this was the sequel. Mom made me handle the funeral details and I didn’t even know where to begin. I looked up places online and called but the two reps I talked to were so unhelpful. I wasn’t upset yet because I couldn’t really understand how you could be dead. I think it was a brain aneurysm or something like that, happens quickly and unexpectedly.

The anxiety dream of the 21st century is no longer taking a test for which you’ve not studied or showing up in your undies. It’s dealing with clueless customer service reps on the phone who endlessly pass you along and put you on hold and accomplish nothing. It was positively Kafka-esque.

Then I looked in the newspaper for funeral info and I was all bewildered and asked mom if she wanted you to be cremated or buried and she said buried but not one of those burials where you can see the person (like under a porch or in a stairwell). Apparently in my dream, there was a danger of that happening. Then she said you’d already taken care of some stuff beforehand, like bought your own coffin the way some people buy cemetery plots “for later use”.

After I woke up all disturbed, I was writing it down and I wrote that Mom said she didn’t want you buried in plain view and that made me realize the significance of “Daniel Plainview” digging for oil.

Sometimes when I’m waiting for the train, in my head I try to imitate Daniel Day-Lewis saying, “Hello. My name is Daniel Plainview, and I’m an oil man. This is my son and partner, H.W..” but I am really imitating Bill Hader’s impersonation of DD-L in that ‘I Drink Your Milkshake’ skit on SNL. After Chris and I [re-]watched No Country for Old Men on Sunday, we started talking with Texan accents.

I really love that movie so much. Mom got it for me for my birthday along with “I Am America (And So Can You!)” [by Stephen Colbert]. I regret buying you the audio book because you are missing out on the stickers and mazes and stuff. But I was thinking about you being into audio books.

I’m pretty sure my dream was about my fear of losing the people I care about most but also about being abandoned and rejected…Usually when I have meaningful dreams about myself I’m an animal like a cat or a bird, or there’s a bird or cat that symbolizes me, but not this time. [Note: the animals are always male.]