About This Dream I Had

I periodically stop by CandyandPizza, which belongs to the talented writer Jeremy Glass, and I'm inspired by the variety of blog posts, but particularly by his "Before I Forget (Last Night's Dream)" bits. One of them is about how he once dreamt that the late, deservedly famous Notorious B.I.G. was his uncle. Fun stuff.

Disclaimer/Intro: Recently, my annoying neighbor, Mrs. A, got on my nerves at a party, and also, I've known for a few days now that I would have to work today at 1:30pm, so my imagination had to have been semi-conscious.


In this morning's dream, I was in a room at my doctor's office while she held her clipboard to her chest and stood ramrod straight before me, saying in a quiet, calm tone, "You're pregnant" (which, in reality, I could not possibly be). Seconds later, I was in my parents' home, talking with my mother, listening to a pair of small feet hurry up the basement stairs.

Recovering From a Friendship Breakup

The hardest part of letting a longtime pal fall away has, for me, been the struggle to end my long obsession with the other person’s wrongdoings. If someone I really like and respect screws up badly enough, I’ll cut off all communication with them until I have processed recent events and compared them to very similar memories, which can take months or even years. Young people still have so much to learn that some kind of reaction is to be expected.
 Usually, the person from whom I’m parting is needy; maybe they’re a narcissist or deeply ashamed of themselves to the point of unintentional secrecy, or maybe they were transformed by a hard childhood into someone who didn’t want to get to know me so much as to give themselves a personification of things they felt they’d been cheated out of. I have a lot of embarrassing history of trying to be buddies with people whose favorite hobbies are their emotional issues. 

6 Reasons Why I Love Tom Hardy

1.    Those lips. He’s so cute! I’d hold his face in my hands and look at those lips! I think life experience has made me develop a bias for a full mouth like that.

To My Mom: You’re not reading this, but I want to address your opinion of my choice of actor. You told me his looks are “weird” and I hear you – he’s not classically handsome - but he’s at the top of my list of celebrity sexceptions and I stand by that.

2.  2009’s The Take. A dark miniseries that aired in the UK (also available for free on hulu), The Take features greed, violence, addiction and messed up families all played by very talented actors. Even the kid playing Hardy’s oldest son does a good job.

This show is the first I’d ever truly binge-watched, and upon reaching the finale, I felt the loss of Tom Hardy’s character. Mind you, Freddy is fucking creepy with a charisma that makes me feel unclean; the very way he walks is repellent and foreboding. Every cocaine hub in Colombia could be powered for two years by the electricity comin’ off that man.

   3.   He seems appreciative of his loved ones. The mention of his family in an interview (specifically his actress then-fiancée, now-wife Charlotte Riley) could make him light up. That alone earns him points with me.

   4.  His voice. The man has a unique, raspy voice. I was compelled to check him out after watching The Dark Knight Rises, and I realized that his Bane monologue wasn’t very heavily influenced by tech magic, but that he is easily able to put an odd, interesting other layer onto his tone and pronunciation. That’s so cool! Dude has one more advantage.

   5.   He makes grumpy loners look sexy. In Lawless, he’s a tough small town moonshiner whose first language is mumbling, and I’m normally annoyed by the latter, but after a long day of selling booze, grumble, grumble, and putting grown men down for a nap with the brass knuckles he keeps in his jacket pocket, I’d be willing to hook up with him, which is a better reaction than what I gave to his presence in Wuthering Heights. He does everything right in being crotchety and spiteful, but I couldn’t just observe his vulnerability and struggles with heartbreak when faced with the way he cuddles a skeleton and dons ridiculous hair. You’ve got to be kiddin’ me with that thing. At times, it is so floppy and sad that it reminds me of a wig Jean-Claude Van Damme wore when he played a serial killer.

               If on YouTube, you find the video that’s made up entirely of Hardy’s Wuthering scenes, you’d be looking at the bio pic of an oddly styled wig and how it survived the great Bane-Charlotte Riley-Rick Grimes love triangle. 

               That said, I think Hardy didn’t bring it as Bill Sikes in 2007’s Oliver Twist, and I looked at the majority of his screen time as an interpretation of some other abusive twat with dirty teeth who happened to be good-looking. It’s like he’d already scored the top spot in a Sexiest Street Urchin contest in Victorian London Magazine and now thought he could just coast.

     6. Sergeant Slaughter, My Big Brother. This is a short film released in 2011. It's simple and poignant. Hardy plays the title character, pecked at by cliché, annoyingly judgmental parents, and he is, like, made of quirks, but he’s determined and interesting and knows how to look out for his younger brother. Oh, and if you need further incentive, in the opening scene, he’s naked. Since I went into the film clueless, I was, um, quite surprised. I think I laughed aloud.
      You can find the film on YouTube. I recommend it!

What Could Happen Now That We're Not Close

       You’re going to live in a city where you can start over, befriending new people at grad school with your literary know-it-all personality, meeting them for coffee at some hip, relaxed café, and you’ll be charming in a blue pea coat and red-orange scarf. Over time, as you work hard and meet people, some of them will be well-intentioned, romantically interested guys for whom you’ll set aside your negativity long enough to learn something new about dating and about yourself.

 School is going to kick your ass, but the people whose very presences make life harder by triggering your anger and jealousy will be thousands of miles away, including me.

Kill, Marry, Bang: 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' Edition

Marry: I would want to get hitched to Mac! Could I still do that? Imagine the weird, weird ceremony with Mac in a leather jacket, Charlie as a groomsman and Dennis secretly acting as best man, which would make for a bachelor party that would last for two or three days and be all kinds of illegal. Mac would show up at the venue for our wedding, brushing dust from his jeans, playing with a cowlick, saying, “Don’t ask…Do you have any food?”

A Conversation With My Late Childhood Dog

                        
 From the Vaults of My Old Blog:

      The room that Arthur has agreed to meet in is bordering on colonial opulence, as if it is the dream bedroom in a manic American Girl doll catalog. It is the only red and white themed room at the Potter Grace Bed and Breakfast, and it is the only room booked for a single occupant listed as Westley Familiaris. By the window in the corner, at the foot of an armchair, sits Arthur, dressed in white, breathing deeply, appearing so comfortable that it's almost zen-like. Outside, it's warm for a February afternoon in his part of the country, with fat blocks of yellow sunlight streaming through windows. Shannon is sitting on the bed at the other side of the room, running her fingers over stitches in the comforter.