The Dreamlife of Angels

As of this week, I'll be doing all of my writing here at FvF. Three Days in October has slowly but surely become a photo blog, and I'm fine with that. It's easier to track my writing if it's all in one place, anyway.

So this morning, I'm going to share with you another of my bizarre dreams. As usual, it was extremely vivid, but this time instead of jotting notes and doodles in my sketchbook, I typed out a synopsis using the Notes app on my iPhone. My original typed notes, complete with spelling and typographical errors:

"Dreamed I was married to an older German man, an artist who did photographs/performance art. Wolfgang massage instructor/helmut newton type. He made me take pregnancy tests that were inconclusive. I peed everywhere and water was getting sprayed from a hole in the wall where he wa drilling into a pipe. He had art scene friends at our house and I hated it. I went to smith and his wife's and Pete was there, he had a lamborghini. He was vacuuming. I had to leave Kid and groceries and childhood dog nappy because my husband (now Hubs) wanted me home. Pete came with me. There was a fire truck at my house and I stole the horn from it. The firemen thought it was my car. I yelled that it drives like a Cadillac. I went inside my house and tried to take another pregnancy test but couldn't. In another part I was at an ob gyn office waiting to be seen,I talked to the receptionist about tortilla chips. The clock was moving in an odd way. I was nervous about time because smith and his wife had come home while I was at their house and I wanted to go back there. While I was at their house and they came home smith asked to hug me and said something about wanting a certain type of hug with hearts together. Trying to get back there or to the doctors office I got lost and ended up at a mall with a kids shoe store, as I went to leave the mall a bunch of black girls were on my jeep and I had to get them off. I was telling them they should be glad to work for their boss, an older black lady. In another part I was driving thru a neighborhood and almost hit a little car with two ladies in it. That was right before Iade the turn that got me lost, to the mall. The whole time I just had the feeling that I had to get back to smith and his wife's house no matter what. And I didn't have my phone. I kept thinking it was going to be too late."

That's a doozy, eh? I'm amazed that I typed that much, half asleep at 1:30AM.

The characters are pretty interesting -- Wolfgang, for example, was a German man who taught a Lomi-Lomi massage class I attended. Helmut Newton, if you don't already know, was an amazing photographer (one of my favorites). Pete is Smith's wife's brother, whom I've only met once. Smith loves to tease me and tell me that I'm secretly in love with Pete. I remember that the medical receptionist looked and talked like one of the girls from nail school, and I think the black girls on the Jeep and their "boss" are probably my other classmates and my instructor. The two ladies in the car? I have no idea. I do remember now that one of them looked a little like Reba McIntyre.

There's a few plot points that make sense, and the rest is kind of nonsense. The art scenesters, well, I've always loathed them. Pregnancy tests? Water everywhere? Not sure about that. I'm sure Freud would have something to say about it.

Lambo Pete vacuuming Smith's house is just too hilarious for words. I'm checking on Smith's dog while he and his wife are out of town, and I had actually considered running the vacuum for them while they're gone (for some reason, here in Virginia, dust just multiplies everywhere whether you're home or not). So the thought of Pete beating me to the punch gives me a chuckle.

Let's see, what else...

Getting lost and feeling panicky about time is a pretty common theme in my dreams. I hate getting lost and being late, so of course those anxieties would manifest in my dreams. Same goes for the overwhelming urge to get back to wherever Kid was, somewhere safe.

The part with the fire truck is hilarious to me, only because it sounds exactly like something I'd do while drunk.

Oh! And the hug thing! Another of my massage instructors, Johnny Storm, always made a big deal about hugging so that your hearts line up. Basically, when you go in to hug somebody, you should move your head to the right, and your heart will be closer to the huggee's heart. I've always liked the thought of it, whether it's anatomically accurate or not. I think I told Smith's dad (very much a hugger) about it when I met him (or maybe he already knew about it?) so I suppose it makes sense that it would manifest in a dream as having something to do with Smith.

The only other thing I remember really clearly was Wolfgang/Helmut's "art." He was kind of a performance artist but also a photographer. The impression I got was that he would stage these happenings and someone would photograph them, and then he'd display the photographs. He did weird things, like shave women and let the hair fall all over him, or throw paint on people. I remember thinking that the work was really pretentious and that I hated having all his cronies in the house, worshiping him.

So yeah, weird dreams yet again. I'll be puzzling over this one for a while. Maybe I'll get another installment tonight? Hmm...

Holding Pattern

Yes, my knee still hurts, but not badly enough to stop me from running. So what's stopping me?

Honestly, I am just really, really, REALLY goddang tired. This has hit me out of the blue. I almost feel like I'm getting a cold, but it never comes. I'm still keeping my food under control (for the most part) but I've been listening to my body and sleeping when it demands.

This isn't the kind of sleeping that shows up when I get really depressed -- you know, where I crawl into bed and don't come out for three days? I mean, I CAN'T sleep like that, I have a job and house and a kid, for Pete's sake, but even if I could, that's not what I want to do. I'm staying active almost all day, but when I crawl into bed at night, sleep comes so quickly that I don't even have time to take my glasses off.

Maybe I really am getting sick? Dunno. Maybe weeks of all kinds of activity (holiday and otherwise) have caught up with me? Dunno. What I do know is that, as per usual, I'm just going to go with the flow. 'Cause quite frankly, I'm too tired to fight it.

Fighting the Urge to Snuggle

The weather's turned cold, and this is my body's cue to curl up and nap, apparently. Somebody done flipped the "HIBERNATE" switch. It's a tough urge to fight -- I've got a super comfy couch, a toddler who likes to cuddle, and streaming movies on Netflix.

I've been doing pretty well at keeping the naps under control, though. I've taken a couple of power-snoozes (less than an hour) on days that I work AND run, but that's it. I made up a few rules for myself to help:

1. Ask yourself, "Are you REALLY tired, or are you just bored?" I find that a lot of times I'll just go to sleep if I don't have anything interesting to do. I've been combatting this by getting back into photography, and I'm about to jump into scrapbooking again (that's my wintertime hobby).

2. No run? No nap. If I don't work out, I don't really have any excuse to be tired. If I do run, I let myself have a 45 minute nap, max.

3. No work? No nap. If I don't work in the morning (my usual 4:45 - 8:45AM shift), again, I don't have any excuse to be tired. And I really only need a post-work nap on days that are super busy, like today (lots of customers, supply order to put away, etc.).

4. Turn on the lights, or better yet, go outside. When I want to nap, I'll get up and turn the lights on (I usually keep them off during the day) or zip outside for a few minutes. It really helps.

Another thing I've been doing for a while now is to regulate my bedtime. This is one of those things that your mom or dad's been telling you your whole life -- go to bed at a reasonable hour. Again, so simple, but it really, really works. I've learned that I really need a solid eight hours in order to feel really good the next day. I just make my bedtime non-negotiable, like an appointment or any other time commitment.

I know I'm not the only one who must be feeling the urge to snuggle. How do YOU handle it?