I don’t sleep enough. I would very much like to sleep more. Some things can be done to improve this — the part where life’s a balancing act and something has to give. I can always work on rebalancing, and not giving up sleep in lieu of ‘me’ time or other things. I’m not sure what can be done about waking children. If it’s not one, it’s the other. I want them to always feel safe and secure, and shield them from any turmoil that churns within me. I want. I don’t always succeed.
I was in the middle of a dream when I heard LB crying this morning. It was a dream about the dating circuit, I think. I was on my way to meet a man. He had a name, but now I can’t recall what it was. Mike, possibly. I parked my car at a bar (a little more cadence and this could be a grown up Dr. Seuss style book — Doctor Sueeeus… Ha! Note to self: tag for future sarcastic writing / art project…) and at the same time a very clean cut biker dude was walking by, to enter the bar. He had unscuffed pale cowboy boots that were very close to his skin color. He had a bearded face, but the beard was short and tidy. There was not a bit of roughness about his look — no weathered skin, no beat up leathers, no ink or visible piercings, no bad ass attitude. He had a bottled water and was complaining there was no place to properly recycle the bottle top, as he threw it in the yard. (This annoyed me. He could have put it in a pocket or dealt with it later or in another less offensive and more responsible way.) He was self secure and there was no hint of lacking confidence. Even though he dressed like a biker dude and was entering the venue of a biker dude, he seemed out of place by appearance, but he was fully confident and not subject to external influences such as the expectations of what a biker dude should be. I noted all of this in the once over I gave him, and concluded that he’s a boring engineer. I said “Hi.”
I must have asked him if he knew the man I was going to meet (who lived next door –yep, next door to a biker bar), wondering if I had the right address. He confirmed, and actually knew the guy. Next scene, the two of us approach the house. There is a screen door and I can see through the house to the back, there is a man outside near a short chain link fence (this is turning out to be a biker bar residential trailer trash neighborhood, it seems). I wave to him in greeting, and he comes into the house. Meanwhile, the biker dude opens the screen door and walks right in as if he owns the place. He has a six pack under one arm –I think it was beer, and remember noting that it seemed out of place because neither guy seemed like the beer drinking type, and I am certainly not myself. The date looks at me, at him, and a fleeting expression of ‘WTH is this guy doing here with her’ crosses his face, but he masks it quickly since he’s a very nice guy. They exchange hellos, since they know each other, and I walk up to the guy and give him a hug, introducing myself. “Hi, I’m Sueeeus.” He is very short and very slight, but lean and wiry, somehow more masculine than the pseudo biker dude. I could crush him. He has dark brown hair, a pleasant face, and intelligent eyes. I take note that I have no physical attraction to him at all. He explains that he had planned for us to watch a movie. I can see that he is internally scrambling to adjust his date plans, with the addition of the third party present. He describes the movie –it’s a children’s movie, G rated animation. “Oh, I know the one!”, I exclaim. “I like that movie. Iron Man.” (In the dream it made sense that it was an animated G rated Disney or DreamWorks type film, even though it was Iron Man.)
I can see in the instant expression that crosses his face that he is disappointed. Disappointed that the other guy showed up. Disappointed that I’m not into him, and that this will be a first and last date. He’s a nice guy, and puts on a smile anyway. He doesn’t seem to notice or perceive that I’m not into the biker dude either. The pseudo biker dude is just there, oblivious to the situation that he is actually intruding upon a date, being inconsiderate to his friend (and me). I size all this up and decide that it doesn’t matter that the biker dude came along, since I’m not into either of them; there’s no relationship potential. I’m not sure why he came along, in the first place. He doesn’t give any impression of being into me. He may just be socially oblivious.
The dream ends with the three of us preparing to watch the movie. More might have unfolded, but I heard LB crying.
Before, or interspersed with that, was another dream in which I was at another person’s house. I think it was my daycare, in fact. I needed to use the bathroom. Usually I’d wait for the comfort of my own home, but apparently my bladder was insistent. For some reason there was limited privacy, so I wanted to take care of it as quickly as possible. I started to go, and saw from the corner of my eye that my sitter’s husband was approaching. I scrambled, made some noise so he would know I was there and not barge in on me, and flushed the toilet. Only it clogged. I was distraught. How could it clog when I’d only peed and not even finished. Urgh, what an uncomfortable feeling, to halt that flow part way through. And then to have to contend with a clogged toilet that I didn’t even clog, and potentially have to excuse or explain myself to him. It was his house, after all. I was embarrassed. I scanned for a plunger, found one, and tried to unclog, working furiously so that I’d have the situation fully taken care of by the time he got to the door, a bit frantic as the water level kept rising. I was hoping hoping hoping that it wouldn’t overflow and leave me with an even bigger mess to clean up. I felt irritated, having to deal with someone else’s crap (literally…) which manifested as my own problem. Just in time, I plunged again, the clog gave way, the water receded and drained properly. I washed my hands and made my exit, relieved to be over with it, but still strained and stressed from the ordeal.
