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Strange Dream

Despite trying to quell my regular nightmares with the aid of valerian root, I’ve either built up a tolerance or am so depressed and distressed that it has no effect.

Last night, for some reason, I dreamed that Lucy had a MySpace blog, which I discovered in secret. Looking back through her archives, I discovered she had somehow become friends with Meron. He didn’t know that the “Lucy” I had been writing about for all these years was the same girl he had befriended while they both attended UIC (we’ll ignore the fact that in real life, Meron goes to U of C and wasn’t even in the area at the time Lucy went to UIC).

I went with Meron to a party at Lucy’s apartment in Iowa City; since I haven’t been out to Iowa City in years, and Lucy has switched apartments twice since the shithole with which I am familiar, an apartment I once hung out at in Gurnee filled in for her new Iowa City pad. Like every shitty party I’ve gone to, the lights were low, a $4 mirrorball sadly attempted to rotate in one corner of the room, and bad emo squealed from the speakers.

At this point, my own subconscious started making fun of me. I suppose I deserve it, but come on… I was sitting on a big, plush chair, far away from everyone, plinking on my guitar. Somebody whose face was obscured in the darkness approached me and said in a husky voice, “Come on, why don’t you play something for us?”

“No, man, my guitar’s in the shop,” I said, ignoring the fact that I was holding it in my hands.

“Oh,” the husky-voiced guy said.

I started playing Brian Setzer’s recording of that song “Sleepwalk,” which I have taught myself over the past few months and actually play passably well at this point. Of course, in the dream, I played it flawlessly and received a smattering of applause for party guests who were only half-listening. At this point, Meron approached me and said, “Man, that was good. Woulda been better if you had been in tune.” Busted.

Later on at this strange party, I stood at a bar that actually existed neither at the apartment in Gurnee nor at any place I had seen it Iowa City; aside from a different background, it was almost an exact duplicate of the crappy-ass bar at my friend Samantha’s boyfriend’s apartment in crappy-ass Wicker Park.

My mental imagining of Lucy’s boyfriend, who I have never met and probably won’t meet until their wedding day, stood behind the bar. He looks, in my demented mind, like a live-action version of Bluto from the old Popeye cartoons. He had lined up a half-dozen or so whiskey glasses on the bar and poured trace amounts of it into each glass, then filled the rest of them up with tapwater. He continued this until he reached the last one, which he filled so high with whiskey that it ran over the edges and a small puddle of exciting Irish liquor formed around the overflowing glass.

“This one’s for you, buddy,” he said amiably, sliding the glass a few centimeters toward me with his index and middle finger.

“Uh, thanks,” I muttered.

The paranoid half of my brain said, “He’s doing this to torment me. I’m sure Lucy told him, probably in a disparaging tone of voice, that I don’t drink, and he’s fucking with me because he’s jealous.”

The more rational half of my brain responded, “What would he have to be jealous about? Not only do you not pose a threat, you don’t want to pose a threat, and I’m sure she’s made that abundantly clear to Bluto.”

I thought for a moment. “Oh right,” the paranoid half agreed.

“Remember,” the rational side of my brain continued, “we’re in Iowa. I’m sure him giving you an oversized novelty glass of whiskey is just a sign of solidarity. He’s probably the first boyfriend Lucy’s ever had who hasn’t been jealous of you.”

“That’s only because he knows she’s pathetic enough to marry him, but not quite pathetic enough to marry us,” the paranoid half retorted.

“Hey!” the rational side yelled. “We have our good qualities.”

“We do?” the paranoid half said.

“Drink up,” Bluto interrupted. I’m sure he noticed the way my eyes darted back and forth while my multiple personalities discussed things. The only thing each personality has in common is an inability to SHUT THE HELL UP.

“No thanks,” I responded confidently. “I don’t drink.”

Bluto gave me a hostile look.

I turned around and saw Lucy standing there.

“Hey, Stan,” she said. “Glad you could make it.”

“Yeah,” I said, and suddenly she launched into an insane barrage of crap that made my dream-self realize why I usually don’t call her on the phone much. After that, it gets really foggy; all I remember is excusing myself, getting into my car — sans Meron, who I imagine will be trapped in Iowa City for the rest of his unfortunate life — and driving back to Chicago as quickly as possible. I’m sure other stuff happened, but I don’t really remember.

And so, you see, this is why I hate dreaming. I know I’m insecure, and I know what I’m insecure and paranoid about, so I don’t need my subconscious bringing all that negative shit up to the forefront. I know it’s trying to say, “Writer, heal thyself,” and maybe it’s trying to say that while maybe I think I’m trying, I’m clearly not trying hard enough…but all I really got out of the dream is that I need to have a large castle built in the middle of nowhere where I can hide from the rest of humanity.

Werid-ass update 12/3/05: A few weeks ago, Lucy did, in fact, send me the link to her MySpace. No word yet regarding whether or not she and Meron have crossed paths.

Posted by Stan on July 4, 2005 9:54 AM  | Permalink | Random Musings | Digg It