I Had a Dream about Barack Obama

I missed Barack Obama during his recent visit to Houston, so I listened to a recording of the speech he made in Austin the next day. Obama has made some fantastic speeches, but I was not moved by the recording. Seemed like a you-had-to-be-there kind of event. About twenty thousand people showed up in the rain and Obama spent several minutes saying thank you as young people in the crowd shouted "we love you." At one point he responded by saying, "I love you too."

I didn't bother listening to the whole recording, but that night I had a dream about attending one of Obama's rallies. The rally was in a giant arena, the kind of venue where a professional basketball team plays. I somehow ended up in a seat right next to where Obama stood at a podium. I think I ended up there because the regular seats got filled. Obama was standing before the cameras and gesturing with his arms. I could not concentrate on what he was saying because I was awed by being in his presence. During a break, he suddenly came up to me as if I worked for him.

"I need you to draft a letter for me," he said.

"Sure," I said. "Anything I can do..."

"It's to the board of a local nonprofit," he continued. I was glad. That's the kind of thing I do normally at my real job. Obama gave me a brief description of what it should say and then went back to the podium like a true multi-tasking, genius politician.

I got to work right away. I had a pen, but I didn't have a piece of paper. All that I could find around me was a hamburger bun. Maybe there was a concession stand nearby? So I started to write out a letter onto the hamburger bun while Obama gave his speech, but every few strokes the pen would break through the outer surface of the bread into the soft middle. I was getting nowhere and didn't know what to do. And that's when the dream ended. BabyG was crying and I woke up.

I'm not sure what my dream means. Here are some possibilities:

* The dream is a message from the Green Goddess and I should devote myself to Barack Obama's campaign. The bread is like the Eucharist. Obama's speeches and his mission are not texts to be reproduced, but are a sacred body that I should consume so that I am transformed.

* I really want to help change the world but deep inside I feel that I am ineffectual. The attempt to write on the hamburger bun represents feeling like a failed change-agent.

* Barack Obama is like a hamburger bun. He may be brownish, but he's made of processed wheat flower not whole grains. He is an unfinished script as many have said, but like a hamburger bun he can't ever become a substantial, finished text. At best, he'll be the packaging for a hormone-fed piece of cow flesh like Bill Clinton was.