My brain never fucking sleeps, I swear

Last night's sleep was riddled with all sorts of stupid dreams.

There was one in which Felix was being snipped at by a snapping turtle. They were both snapping at each other, and every time the turtle would head for Felix's, neck, Felix would contort into this weird cartoony version of himself. Shaking violently. It sucked.

There was another in which I was staying in some huge, ritzy dorm-type situation with lots of other girls. I discovered that if you went up to the fifth level, it looked like a posh foreign hotel, with lots of people milling about, lots of twinkling lights everywhere, and some sort of amusement park ride on the roof that we could see through the window every time a car of screaming tourists whizzed by.

I was looking for a bathroom — really had to pee — but they were all occupied (I accidentally walked in on one girl and didn't even notice that she was sitting there on the toilet, reading a magazine until she spoke up) until I found one I hadn't known about. It was tiny, with a window near the ceiling and toiletries and various ladies' accoutrements everywhere. I sat down to do my business and noticed a Simpsons box set on the floor. It was bright magenta, and the shape of the head of some little girl character I have never seen before and probably doesn't exist. It was a "Treehouse of Horrors" collection. I was like, When did they start making these?!

More falling

My sister is driving a big yellow school bus. I am sitting in the back seat, only it's facing the back window. Something happens (I don't know where we were) but we are falling, falling, falling, and the high-rise buildings outside the window are going by so quickly and so geometrically that I get my camera out to take my daily picture. Even as I plunge toward death.

When we see the ground rising to meet us, everyone jumps at the same time to lessen the impact. We hit the ground hard, but are not crushed into a big yellow people pancake. We drive on, past a gathering of some people, where I see my sister standing. Except she's also driving the bus. I point out this minor hiccup in the space-time continuum but before Stephen Hawking can enter and explain it all, I wake up.

I need to stop wearing smoking patches while asleep

A large black man is making sweet love to me in the church rectory. (Hey-o!)

There's liquorice whips, a contraption that suspends lovers in mid-air and a cartoonishly oversized black dildo that looks as if it could possibly impale my esophagus.

"Quickly now, cracker," the large black man says, "once Father O' Nan comes back from the Food Lion, it's all over but the shoutin.'"

California dreamin'

I have walked into some kind of unconventional classroom headed by Hugo Schwyzer. He seems annoyed that I have walked in late. And annoyed, perhaps, because he's never seen me before and suddenly I'm in his class.

They're all doing elaborate and painful-looking yoga poses. I don't join in, but instead gaze out the huge picture window into the California sunset, dipping into the massive Pacific.

I go outside and it's dark. I can hear the ocean, and even feel its presence, but it's so dark that I can't see it. I walk down the beach toward it, fearing the moment that I feel it overtake me. I know deep down that once I'm in, I can't get back out. I retreat to the beach, and then realize that it doesn't matter how far I retreat; the tide is climbing and the water will greet me anyway.

Driving while Grandmaw

[This one's from last week.]

My grandmother and I are in a bigger version of her modest, newish silver SUV. We are driving -- er, trying to park, more accurately -- atop some kind of platform structure where the ground is actually a series of sunken trays that hold moving water. Please don't expect me to explain it any better than that. It makes no sense. Why moving water instead of asphalt? Hell if I know. It almost sounds like some stupid Fear Factor stunt.

Anyway, we're moving slowly, backing up, going this way and that, and I'm nervous that we're going to fall off the platform. She maneuvers us onto a piece of platform that looks as though it's for authorized personnel only. I tell her we should go somewhere else, and as she's backing up, we careen off the platform -- the fall feels like it takes forever, and I am aware of my own screaming -- and we hit the concrete below with a thud and a pop of the tires blowing out. Luckily, we land on all four tires and are not hurt. And no one -- since there are people everywhere around us -- seems to have been crushed by our vehicle.

I am freaking out, of course. I make sure Grandmaw is okay before getting out of the car and just walking around for a bit to collect myself.

Doing it wrong. Again.

Last night's brief foray into the world of my anxiety-ridden subconscious mind involved me and my camera and the feeling that, once again, I'm not doing things right.

I've been dreaming like this for years and years now. It's getting really tedious.

Anyway, once again, I was at my parents' house, and I had been commissioned to take photographs of my dad and/or my uncle as they simulated working-man activities. Or something. Except, the lighting was low and I wasn't getting good shots inside. There felt like a time limit was looming. I gave up, frustrated, and then realized, stupidly, that they had gone outside to continue posing, and I was missing my chance to get good shots. It was almost like I was competing with someone else for the best shots. This is no doubt because the last thing on TV before I went to bed was that show The Shot, about photogs competing against one another.

No nookie for old men

I don't usually dream about things the night that they enter my consciousness. Usually it takes time for ideas and places and people to marinate in my skull before they begin popping up in my dreams.

Not so with Javier Bardem, the actor who plays the psycho in No Country for Old Men. He showed up in my dreams last night, uh, in a big way.

We're in some kind of confined space — a big room, maybe, though I don't know where. There's furniture in it, though I don't know what kind. We are wearing pajamas, I think, almost like we're having to sleep somewhere unexpectedly. I don't know how I know him, or even that I do know him, but any time someone leaves the room and we are alone, he approaches me in his best seductive swagger — which is not even a swagger at all, but a full-court press — and transfers some of his heat to me as his mouth — large and firm and prickly — presses against mine.

He follows me around, literally hounding me, telling me things like, "But I neeeed you" in that molten accent of his. I am flattered, of course — every woman likes the chance to play hard to get just a little bit — but I am wary of him. I know his reputation as a prolific lover and ladies' man. I suspect he is a womanizer, playing me for a fool. I rummage through his luggage (his BAGGAGE!!!), and pull out two pairs of women's underwear.

"Either you have some interesting hobbies or we have a problem," I tell him as he laughs sheepishly, caught.

[this next bit edited out because you should have to pay good money for my cheesy erotica!]