Advanced psychoanalysis this ain't

My propensity for anxiety dreams is, I think, well established. However, I continue to be amused by the metaphors in which my subconscious works. During the month or so that I was working on that goddamn essay, I had the following two dreams:

• Company was coming for dinner. My guests started arriving early, and as they arrived I realized that not only had I not cleaned my cats' litter boxes, but said litter boxes were disgustingly, comically foul: overflowing and reeking. I kept trying to take care of them before anyone noticed (while wondering whether people had noticed, but were just too polite to say anything)--but the doorbell kept ringing as I grew more and more frantic.
• I was getting dressed for a day on campus, and decided to try something complicated with layers and belts. The look wasn't really coming together, but I kept trying, piling a ridiculous number of clothes on the bed in the attempt.

These dreams came a couple of weeks apart. And when I awoke from the second one, I realized that, hey: if my writing was no longer a stinking pile of feces--but just an outfit that could stand a few adjustments--things were probably going to be okay.