Dearest Rachel –
What with having Kevin over, I confess that I will be hard-pressed to keep in touch with you every day. And while been given dispensation to skip a day here and there, as I’ve built up a number of consecutive days of writing you, it gets that much harder to give up and do so – something that you would probably understand, given your compulsion to visit several of your online games on a daily basis for that little dopamine hit as it reminds you you’ve done so for X number of days in a row. And I do have this little golden period where I can focus upon writing to you, between waking up and when I consider it safe to leave the bedroom, hemmed in as I am by Logan preparing for his workday in the master bathroom just outside my door. So basically, apart from days where I might be relating the events of the previous night, most of this week’s letters will be of the night’s dream(s).
And as I recall, you would have no problem with that, save for the fact that you might observe that I remember them so much better now that you’re not here to tell them to directly. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it has to do with actually having the time upon waking to process them, which I never had when I was having to prepare myself for the workday (and which you were usually sleeping through at any rate, so it wasn’t as if you were really ‘there’ to tell them to in any event – a understandable situation, given how late you tended to stay up). It might be that, in the process of listening to your dreams first, whatever I might have seen the night before paled in comparison (or might simply have been forgotten while I was listening – and don’t apologize for that; usually your dreams tended to be more vivid and have more clear storylines, at least the way you would tell them). And that final observation may be the third possibility; that I would decide they really weren’t worth telling you about, particularly in comparison to yours. But at this point, there isn’t really that much else to tell you about but these things, so you get to hear about some of the more pedestrian stuff that goes through my head.
Not that there’s really a point at which dreams could be considered ‘pedestrian’ or ‘mundane’; really, even the most ordinary of dreams seem strange when compared against real life. One might accept them as one is viewing them, but if one’s life were lived as one dreamed (and keep in mind, I’m talking about dreams that one has overnight, not like the daydreams where we envision what we wish life to be; that’s a totally different category of vision), it would have a decidedly uncanny valley quality about it, in the same way that a cartoon or anime sees normal within the confines of the story onscreen, but looks decidedly out of place in the real world. Consider the creepy nature of the kigurumi, who wear animeque masks, complete with those enormous eyes and tiny noses. Suddenly the characters who look cute and endearing in a given show become offputting and almost terrifying when brought into real life.
With all that being said, it’s weird to realize that REM sleep is supposedly absolutely necessary for a good night’s restful sleep. There’s something ironic about the fact that this phase of sleep is mint to organize our thoughts from the day before, and for the day ahead, and yet, as these thoughts are presented to us, they are so chaotic and frenzied. They seem to be the polar opposite of what they are meant to be, as a general rule.
Last night’s (or, I suppose rather, this morning’s) offering were in that chaotic vein, being comprised mostly of images, with no particular plot to them, such as I could tell. Still, in order to relate them to you, they are also difficult to describe without trying to create a plot, like a scaffold upon which to hang the images for display. I suppose the ‘high concept’ (as I’m told that they call it in Hollywood pitch meetings) could be described as an updated version of ‘A Hard Day’s Night,’ if it were set in the late 70s or early 80s, and allowed to be rated NC-17 (or not rated at all, since why bother, when it’s going to get the one that for all intents and purposes is only the official equivalent to ‘X’?)
The framework involved some hair metal band of the era – don’t ask me who, it really doesn’t matter – and their efforts to get from one gig to another, while they’re being too distracted by the whole ‘sex and drugs’ to focus on the ‘rock’n’roll’ aspect of the life that was, after all, their job. Sometimes I think those stories were exaggerated for the sake of good press copy; then again, considering the lives cut short due to overindulgence (such as Keith Moon), or those suffering the effects of prior excess (like Ozzy Osbourne) – and these were the successful rockers – and I’m forced to acknowledge their veracity.
Still, the images of band buses or vans essentially flying through the air, only to literally drop out of the sky when they somehow spot a place where groupies might hang out – and the things they would do at a place like that, which might make the average Roman emperor jealous – are the sort of things I’d be hard pressed to accurately describe, in part because I try to keep things clean here, and also because, after an hour of typing, the specifics are starting to fade (not that they were easily understood or put into words even as they were ‘happening,’ to be honest).
So here’s to hoping that I’ll have something to tell you about each morning, as I wait for a safe time to leave the bedroom and continue to try to maintain the streak. Hope you don’t mind too much.
Anyway, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 