Ed is in Chicago

I slept fitfully last night. I am normally OK at night, as have one last shower, shut myself up in my bedroom, strip my clothes off and pass out covered in a thin film of moisture. Last night though I kept on waking up, and I had strange dreams in between.

I dreamt that I had lunch with Bill Clinton and the Master of my College at University, Robin Lord Butler. We were in a plush, rather 18th Century style room, with a lot of green and gold in the décor, light but not garish. All was going rather well, though Lord Butler seemed a little uneasy. I am not sure that I was supposed to be there, but I was being chummy and friendly, so I was tolerated. At one point Bill told us how he loved to take his yacht and sail with his family off the coast of Maine (I have no idea if Maine even has a coast, but this is a dream…OK?) and Nantucket. I expressed myself warmly, saying how I would love to try sailing sometime, but to go sailing you either have to own your own boat or you have to work as a crew member – thinking I would be happy to work as crew on somebody’s boat. Then, I did not want it to seem as if I was angling for an invitation to sail with Bill Clinton on his yacht, so I turned to Lord Butler and said

‘Do you have any friends with boats?’

But Lord Butler looked at me with his craggy grey face and said

‘I did not think you would be so low.’

I looked at Bill, and he seemed disappointed in me too, though his face was not clear in the foggy depths at the other side of the room. I was on the sofa next to Lord Butler and I leant over to him, so that my chest was against his, and took him by the shoulder, my fingers sinking into the soft corduroy of his shoulder pad, and I said in an impassioned and rather theatrical manner,

‘You do not understand. I speak from the heart. It has always been my desire to go away to sea… ever since I was a little boy.’

So – I am not sure what that is all about. Anxiety about fitting in? Yearning for the sea? Something I ate? Answers please, on a postcard…