A.M. P.M.

Do Moon Drops work?  

After Red and Minah left, I had that final scotch, took my Moon Drops, put lavender on my temples, and went to bed.  And as I said yesterday, I slept a profound and deep sleep.  But I had a dream.  I heard a car squealing down the street, the engine rev, then as it came closer, a crash and a scream.  I woke up, heart racing.  WTF?  WTF?  I listened then, but heard nothing.  Maybe I should have gotten up, but I was in a coma, and it didn't take long for me to regain unconsciousness again.  

Yesterday the tenant came over.  

"Did you hear that last night?"

"What?"

"That car."

I hadn't thought about my dream all day.  I gave her a puzzled look.  

"You'd better look at your front yard."

There were car tracks that led across the street and over my curb.  The grass was torn up in the tire tracks and the mulch of the driveway was piled up where the car had finally come to a halt. 

"Jesus. . . I thought I was having a dream!"

"I can't believe you didn't get up.  I heard it and saw it out my window.  I thought the car was going to hit your house."

It sure came close.  I stood in the yard looking, befuddled.  What could have caused this?  

"What time was it?"

"Three."

I looked at the curve.  O.K.  The car squealed its tires down the street before the curve.  The tire tracks, though, went haywire in the straight away, just a sudden jog toward my house.  The school term is coming to an end.  Finals are done.  

"It must have been some drunken Country Club College kid," I said. 

"I don't think so.  It was an older car, kind of ratty.  The woman who got out was probably thirty.  She had dyed red hair.  She was drunk or fucked up.  She was jacking her car around, backing up, then she pulled out of your driveway."

"I slept through all of that?"

I looked at the oak tree in the front yard.  It had been skinned at the bottom.  A piece of plastic running board lay nearby.  

"A white minivan with Texas plates was just sitting in front of your house.  It pulled up to the apartment then backed down the street in front of your house again.  I think it was the same car.  I think she came back to see what the damage was.  

Other than the skinned tree and the torn grass, there was no damage to my place.  

"Do you think I should call the police?"

"Maybe."

I was undecided.  What was there to do?  But I was in Lala land, too.  I had dreamed it all, I thought.  Those Moon Drops.  Really weird.  

One of the gymroids asked me to go out for drinks last night, but I wasn't for company two nights in a row.  It was Friday night.  I wanted to make a roasted vegetable dinner with tofu and "party" at home.  

As has become my habit of late, I was ready to go to bed early.  I was rewatching "Lost in Translation."  I hadn't seen it for years.  When it came out, I was mad for it.  I thought Sean Penn's Best Actor Oscar was a  robbery.  I thought Murray had given a lifetime performance in that film.  

Last night, I thought many different things.  Scarlett Johansson was seventeen when the film was shot.  She was playing a Yale grad who has been married for two years.  Of course I was in love with her.  But last night, the haircut looked strange.  While Murray stood heads taller than the Japanese in the street, Johannson was  half a head shorter.  She was full of lips and belly.  There were scenes where the chemistry between them was purely magical, but Murray's performance didn't seem as Oscar winning as it had.  I noticed things I hadn't before.  Neither character could sleep until they were together.  When they were, they were often overtaken with slumber.  Nice touch, I thought.  How could I have missed that?

Three quarter of the way through the film, though, my eyes were heavy.  I knew how the movie ended.  I could finish watching it later.  I cleaned up the kitchen, brushed my teeth, and ate some Moon Drops.  I turned on the new air purifier and rubbed lavender on my temples.  

I woke every two hours during the night.  My knee hurt.  Was it that, or was I waiting on another car to jump the curb?  I was in NYC, but I had gotten lost.  I wasn't sure where I was or what direction I needed to go.  I ran into one of The Twins, my buddies who live a few streets away.  He was very casual about seeing me, even blasé.  He had bought another place in NYC.  He took me over to show me.  Then he met some people at the bar.  I had all my stuff inside his new place.  It was getting late.  It would be dark soon.  There was no time.  Should I call the airline and make a reservation for a flight home that night?  I got a call.  It was my girlfriend.  She was in our room in another part of town.  She was smarmy.  It was obviously over between us.  I could tell she didn't love me anymore.  I was feeling terrible.  I wanted to walk down Broadway.  I felt I hadn't seen anything yet this trip.  I was alone and uncertain.  I felt the profound loss of love.  

WTF?  Was it the Moon Drops?  I'd eaten the last of them.  Maybe they had sat for too long.  I thought they tasted stale.  

You'd think I would go back to sleep and have a different dream.  I don't think I did.  I looked at the clock again.  Five.  What time had I actually gone to bed.  Let's say ten.  Seven hours of disturbed sleep.  O.K.  I'd get up.  I could go back to bed any time I wanted to.  Coffee.  The news at five is always yesterdays.  Were Red and Minah here yesterday?  No, that was Thursday.  When was the car crash?  I thought about how we measured the days.  It wasn't last night, of course, that the car crashed into the tree and yard.  It was the night before, but it was yesterday. . . three a.m.  Ante Meridiem.  Before midday. The day is measured from 12:00 to 12:00.  Midnight marks a.m. or the beginning of a new day.  So the car crash was yesterday even though it happened the same night Red and Minah were here.  

My morning thoughts are muddled.  

I don't think I am unloved, but I live without the daily dose.  There are terrible prices that must be paid for constant love, though.  Humans are inconsistent in this.  There is always one person more in love than the other at any given time.  It is great when the cycles coincide.  There is nothing like that.  

It is Saturday.  It has been for nearly seven hours.  Sunrise is soon.  There are many holiday parties today.  My neighborhood has one at the lake this evening.  It is on the Christmas Boat Parade tour.  There are all day holiday markets in the hipster part of town.  The Cafe Strange will be truly that today.  I have plans to meet with old colleagues and friends in the coming weeks.  My mother has a birthday on Wednesday.  All of that, but I feel flat.  I feel no Joy of the Season, not even excited for a low key, sophisticated way.  I can't face watching a holiday movie.  It is not that I am sad.  It is nothing like that.  Just flat.  The season is just a dull hum.  I don't even have new music this year.  

The gymroids were excited by the Red and Minah thing, though.  

"Did you have a 3some?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you guys?  No.  They are my friends."

I didn't tell them that I am just a baby and that those two scare the shit out of me.  I guess there are two kind of people in the world, though.  Those who bore me and those who scare the shit out of me.  

I've been with both, usually sequentially.  But I don't think a threesome works.  Somebody is going to get left out.  The world is binary, right?  

The gymroids are all married.  Binary.  

But I know what they mean. If I weren't such a baby. . . .