When I woke up this morning, my body felt awful. It was about half an hour before I had to get up. I felt like it was going to take that entire half-hour to even get to the phone and call in sick. I felt so bad that it had infested myself into whatever dream I was having (which happens from time to time). My body crouched into a fetal position. Then, inexplicably, I fell back asleep.

The alarm woke me up half an hour later. I dreaded getting up to get to the phone. I pondered how I was going to make up the hours I was about to miss. Finally I dragged myself out of bed and...

I felt fine. No sign of any problems. I thought about it and I had no reason to be so sore before.

This stuck in my mind during the hour commute or so, when I finally came to the conclusion that I only woke up once this morning.

I had a dream last night. The dream was oddly in third person. The last words in the dream were - I kid you not - "You no good, pissant, son of a "

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!

My alarm went off and my dream was censored.

When I go to sleep with the radio on, it's not uncommon for whatever music I'm hearing to make its way into the dream. Somehow the entire dream will be transplanted to a concert or characters in the dream will break out into a music, except that the song has as little to do with what's going on as a alt/rock music video has to do with the actual song, which is to say not much. Two nights ago, my dream had a song at a rather pivotal moment. The first odd thing about the dream is that I wasn't listening to music as I slept.

In the dream, I met a girl at a coffee corner shop type atmosphere. She bore a passing resemblence to Ora, Lisa, Eel, and another girl that I dated in 02-03, who all bear a passing resemblence to one another. I was taken by the girl right away, but she wasn't impressed with me at all. I told corny jokes and tried my darndest to be cute and interesting, but nothing had an affect on her. The more effort I put forth, the more energized I began to get and the more I wanted to get her number, go on a date with her, or whatever it was that I wanted from her. It was very dispiriting.

Then suddenly the radio starts playing a Blue October song. We start singing it together.

And I'm an automatic steeple for depressed and lonely people
My heart while in it's cage
Give and not recieve a thing
But the only funny thing is that
I don't know how to give myself advice
And I've got this post-traumatic thing
This tattoo of a ring around my wedding finger
That's where I want to stake this claim

At which point she burst in to tears, wrapped her arms around me, and told me that she loved me.

The parade of interesting dreams continues. Last night Audrey was in my dream. We were hanging out after having spent some time apart, but something was wrong. I asked, at some point, "Why aren't we talking?"

"What should we be talking about?"

"What we've always talked about!"

A few years ago when Anna and I parted ways, it was difficult in more ways than one. Procedurally, the most difficult part was that we were so used to one another. Not just as a romantic partnership, but as friends and confidants. Like many parting couples do, we made a promise to remain close friends. It was as selfish as magnanimous because we each needed someone and we were both the most qualified individuals for that.

Then there were physical needs. I don't mean sex, but rather openly displayed affection. Hugging instead of kissing her goodbye was one of the roughest transitions. There was also suddenly talking about our futures seperately instead of as one. It even seemed logical at the time that we could continue to act as a couple even if we weren't because, hey, we had nothing better to do.

While our final months were not particularly happy ones, they were what we understood. As with any couple, talking about us was one of the big things that we talked about. It was really difficult to get away from that comfort zone. But I needed out of the relationship and she (pre-Pierce) wanted to keep going and we would have found ourselves talking in the circles over and over again. Yet even though I was vaguely aware of it at the time, it still seemed attractive in its own way.

Like many parting couples do, we renegged on the close friendship promise. She became preoccupied with Pierce and I with Audrey and the transition actually seemed smoother with each other out of the way. There were a lot of questions left unanswered and there was the desire to continue to talk about us, but it was largely unproductive. Her strong, strong, strong disapproval of Audrey provided a much-needed schism that was probably inevitable.

A year or so later when Audrey and I parted ways, I remember her writing an email saying that she really wanted things to continue the way that they were. I remember walking out of Occupational and Environmental Safety class at U of H, thinking of nothing but her. I'd told her that I needed some time and space and that I wouldn't be seeing her again for some time. She objected vociferously and she had a good point: Why not?

The argument also held. Then I looked over at the Science building where I knew Vince also took night classes and realized that I might run in to the soon-to-be-lovers. In front of God and country I cried the last tears of that affair. Then I became angry that she'd dragged things on for so long while I'd been remarkably unhappy and then prepared to jump ship when something better came along. I don't often take pride in my angry and embittered behavior when I'm experiencing it, but I'm grateful that I felt what I did at that moment because that saved me the prolonged agony of holding on to what was no longer real.

Yet then, as now, there is the motivation to reach out to these people from my past. Anna and I have been talking a lot more recently, but no amount of communication can give us together what we once had. Things with Audrey are and probably forever will be more complicated, but the desire I sometimes have to drop her a line and talk about what we've always talked about seems reductive. I've gone my own path, she's gone hers, and the only place for us to go is into the past.

Anna, Audrey, and I would be much better served going into the future and not talking about the things we've always talked about.

Last night Eel's sister Sally was in my dream. I don't know what the dream was about, but I remember that Sally was there and there was something about ice cream.

I met up with Eel's family this weekend and out of nowhere Sally insisted that we absolutely positively had to get ice cream on the way home. So we did.

I haven't eaten ice cream in four months.

Weird.

There was a man in a wheelchair at the bottom of an down-bound escalator. Most took great pains to get around him while others gave him cold looks. "I can't move!" he exclaimed. "It's too difficult! I can't move!"

A young man going down the escalator swung himself across by placing one hand on the escalator rail and another on the handlebar on the back of the wheelchair.

The man in the wheelchair cried, stood up, and ran away, screaming, "Don't use me!"