While I was sleeping

(I'm re-posting this one since I had to delete the original post because it was drawing a lot of spam. Someone from Russia was trying to use this post to promote dental implants.)

Every night I have dreams and often those dreams are very vivid. In my dreams, I can feel texture, smell odors, and after I wake up I can remember the most miniscule details. Most mornings I can remember details about my dreams, such as the location of light switches in a room, the color of someone's eyes (someone who doesn't even exist), whether the air was warm or cold, the food that I ate, and countless other fragments of information. When I first wake up, all of this stuff is very clear and sometimes I lie in bed for a moment trying to get my bearings because I'm not always sure at first if it was a dream or if it really happened. Dreams can leave me extremely uneasy sometimes. Especially when I have a dream that something bad is about to happen and it's so clear that when I wake up I still think that something is about to go wrong.

The other night I had a dream that I was the manager for some Japanese punk band during their U.S. tour. Does it get any weirder than that? Yes, it does. They were a bunch of hipster kids who barely spoke two words in English. They also insisted on having apple pie after each show. Their favorite restaurant was Perkins and they liked to throw things at me when I wasn't looking. The bass player developed a liking of country music. This apparently caused some sort of rift in the band and they had a big falling out. I couldn't understand what they were talking about (because I don't speak Japanese), but it must have been serious because the rest of the band took off with the tour bus leaving the bass player and I stranded at a truck stop. Then my alarm clock went off and I woke up.

I sometimes wonder if I should document my dreams because they are so strange and so clear. They fade so quickly from my memory as the day goes on, but they leave such a powerful impression on me that I keep thinking about them throughout the day, even as the details begin to grow dim. I wonder why we dream? Do they sometimes serve as some sort of warning? Why do they fade so quickly? And what English-speaking person has dreams in Japanese?! How messed up is that?

Tryptophan Street

Last night, my commute took much longer than usual. Most likely because I was wearing rollerblades and skating through traffic on I-380. It was hard to keep up and vehicles kept rushing past, nearly knocking me off the road. The sky was almost dark, but the oil well fires along the interstate provided a warm, flickering glow that helped light my way. Some of the wells burned more brightly than others, causing huge columns of fire to leap up into the sky, and creating plumes of smoke that could be seen for miles.

As I skated, I had to keep wiping the sweat and grime from my face. The heat from the fires was stifling and blackened particles floated in the smoky air. Debris from passing cars stung my forehead and every so often a rock would fly up and hit me.

Eventually, I arrived home. Of course, there was the car still sitting in the driveway where I left it that morning. How in the world did I forget to drive the car? I couldn't leave it sitting in the driveway, so I strapped on my helmet and climbed in. I backed it into the garage as carefully as I could, but that was really difficult to do with my rollerblades still strapped on. Either the garage had gotten narrower, or my driving skills had taken a nosedive, because I couldn't seem to get the car into the garage correctly. On the first try, I hit Cynthia's car and knocked over both motorcycles. The second try resulted in my car scraping violently against the side of Cynthia's car, gouging up the sheet metal on both cars and taking off lots of paint, but at least I got the car far enough in there to shut the door. I shook my head at all the destruction I had caused, but figured that with a little buffing I could get most of the scratches out and maybe no one would notice.

I tossed the rollerblades over the fence and went inside. As I walked through the kitchen, I noticed the neighbors outside digging through our trash. I opened the window and yelled at them and they scampered off and hid behind the bushes, waiting for me to go away so they could resume licking the empty pizza boxes. Weirdos.

Cynthia greeted me wearing a new headband with fuzzy bunny ears. It didn't look as nice as her old headband, but I didn't say anything. Rose and Emily were playing in the living room and Rose told me that mommy kept trying to lock them out of the house. I told her not to make mommy mad.

We sat down to the dinner table and ate popsicles. Mine was grape and tasted great. Then we skipped dessert and cleared the table. Immediately the house went dark, so we went to bed.

Note: Turkey and Ritz crackers make a good late night snack, but apparently they mess with your dreams. Must be the tryptophan.

Hollywood Avenue

When I was growing up, I lived in this house on Hollywood Avenue in Chicago. It was a 2-story flat in Edgewater, at the north end of Lake Shore Drive. I found this old scan from a photo and decided to post it.

Ah, memories...