Sleeping In Flame

For the past few nights, I've been having vivid dreams. There was the going back to school dream I mentioned in my last entry. Last night, I had another doozy of a dream. My reaction when I awoke was "whoa, I think I have a loose filling now."

A little under eight years ago, I had just graduated from college and was working in New Jersey for the summer before I headed out to law school. During my free time, I ended up hanging out with my sister and her pals who had just graduated from high school. (My folks moved to Jersey while I was in college, so I didn't know anyone in the area 'cept the fam.) One of my sister's friends, we'll call her Zoe, and I seemed to get along really well. We'd often end up finishing each others sentences to the point of annoying everyone else. When my sister was on the phone with Zoe, Zoe and I would say the same thing at the same time unbeknowst to each other. Well, at least unbeknowst until my sister said, "My God, you guys just said the same thing at the same time." At least one of my sister's friends said Zoe seemed fond of me, and made a "What are you guys, married?" crack. In terms of what she looked like, well, Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" kept popping insanely in my head everytime I saw her.

Yeah, OK, so I fell a little in love with Zoe. Unfortunately, Zoe looked at me like the older brother she never had, so nothing ever happened. For the next several years, I kept looking for a little bit of Zoe in every woman I was interested in - brunette, artistic bent, petite. Not the wisest strategy in finding a relationship there, whoo boy, let me tell you. Eventually I fell for someone else, and I actually saw Zoe again at my sister's wedding a year ago without feeling giddy or depressed. Despite me pining away after Zoe for years like some Bronte novel protagonist, I never dreamt about her. Until (bum bum baaah!) last night.

So in the dream, it was pitch black outside - a starless night. A friend's party was wrapping up and I had a long drive home. Zoe was in my car looking at me with want in her eyes. This surprised me because I knew how she felt, so I gave her many excuses to come to her senses. "We have a long drive home, so we should get going now," I said. She still gave me that look, and started to lean toward me. I started the car but made a U-Turn because it was now too late to drive home. I caught of glimpse of my friend walking inside his home. Then his porch light went off. "I guess we can't stay here since I don't have a key," I said. "Oh, so what are you going to do about it?" Zoe asked, leaning closer to me and, suddenly, she kissed me hard. I gave in. We kissed some more, and before we could reenact the fogged up car scene in Titanic, I woke up.

Yeah, I know, I really need to find a girlfriend. But telling me that is like finding some guy, sunburnt, dehydrated, skin all crusty and pink, in the desert and saying, "Hey buddy, you need to get yourself something to drink."