Is Gary Dop God?

The Michigan lottery was just hanging out on the corner of Butternut and 144th with their trailer of lotto cash. The bills were part of a large sheet of perforated cardboard. Each rectangle was worth $1000. It was on a first come first serve basis. Magically, I was the first to arrive and emptied the trailer except for a few bills. I took the sheets rather than trying to separate the bills. It seemed the only logical thing to do. Before I could count my $1000 pieces of cardboard, I woke up.

But if you look up dreams about money, it’s never about money. Freudian thought views money as a symbol for excrement. Isn’t it obvious that a pile of cash is really just a pile of shit? I most certainly wouldn’t want to spend it or pay my bills. It’s really that I have a problem with anal fixation, and I’m mentally damaged from strict toilet training as a child. What the fuck? Everything is about sex or shit with Freud.

I played the lotto on Friday the 13th. I didn’t win. This isn’t some happy fairy story. But Jacks won $20 on a scratch off. Maybe her luck was my luck by proximity. Really, I have been more fortunate lately. In September, I was offered and accepted a new job in ICU/TU when the odds of finding a new job in this economy are 5%. I’m not sure who came up with that number, but it makes a good story. The 1st day that I worked in ICU on my own, I had a seriously critically ill patient on a ventilator with an ART line, CVP line and about 7 IV solutions all working to keep this patient alive. I would not have been surprised if this patient had died, but the patient lived that night and the next night. My new boss sent me an e-mail congratulating me on my good work! Me, who was scared shitless to work in ICU.

Last week I received an acceptance letter from Vagabondage Press. They accepted “The Key Collector” for The Battered Suitcase for the Spring 2010 issue. http://www.vagabondagepress.com/

It’s not just me either. Some of my MFA buddies have reported prize nominations and acceptances for their writings. My MFA buddies say that this new fortune should be attributed to Gary Dop. http://www.garydop.com/index.html Gary Dop is God, they say. He is also a University of Nebraska MFA graduate. It’s rumored that his poetry gets published every month. In fact, he might even get paid to write. So they follow the Commandments of Dop, hoping that they too can receive publishing blessings. #1 Send out multiple submissions. #2 Snail mail has a better chance of being accepted than e-mail. #3 Keep sending out multiple submissions. Okay, so I don’t really know the commandments, because I don’t believe in Gary Dop. I believe that he exists. I just don’t believe in his supernatural powers. And then I took his name in vain. Gary Dop Damn it! My MFA buddies chastised me. Maybe if I believed in Gary Dop, I’d win the lotto. Maybe I could make a Gary Dop shrine and pray to his mother. Maybe I could hang a painting of him over my bed, so he could look down upon me while I sleep peacefully in my bed and dream about winning the lotto and getting published.