#149 - only in dreams.

for years now, i've been waking up pretty much every morning with absolutely no recollection of my dreams from the previous evening. i'm pretty sure why this is, but we won't get into that right now in this fully public forum. reasons aside, science tells me that there are dreams going on up on that brain of mine whilst i snooze, but i'll be damned if i know what those dreams are about. on the random occasions when i wake up & actually do remember my dreams, i find myself cursing waking life & wanting to go right back to sleep, with the hope that i'll pick right up where i left off. that never happens though...stupid dreams & their lack of continuity.

over the past week something's changed though. i've been waking up almost every morning with actual memories of the previous evening's dreams. quite frankly, it's been awesome, although it's made me want to spend more & more time sleeping. i've never been one to believe in dream analysis, but if i was, here's a sampling of what i'd have to work with:

• the random hookup dream - this was the first dream i remember having over the past week. i was hanging out in a pretty full bar, something akin to bell house, having a chat with a fellow FIPS writer. which writer it was will remain secret, as right in the middle of our conversation, for no apparent reason, we just started sucking face. it didn't last all that long, but we were both definitely enjoying ourselves. WICKED HOTT.
• the alien urine dream - this was a pretty straightforward one. i woke up & got out of bed, went to the fridge & got myself a glass of water and downed that puppy like it was my job. then i went into the bathroom, flipped open the toilet lid & filled the bowl with purple & blue urine. yes. it was multicolored. luckily, when i awoke, the contents of my dream hadn't translated to real life.
• the flamethrower dream - my former roommate & i were walking around in an industrial-looking area. i took out a cigarette & popped it in my mouth, but couldn't find a lighter. luckily, my former roommate's also a smoker, so he took out his lighter for me. as he did so, a bug flew by & instead of lighting my cigarette, he shot a stream of lighter fluid out the top of the lighter & created a flamethrower that he used to torch the hell out of that bug.
• the backyard tent dream - i was in the backyard of my parent's home up in nh, where a junior high-era friend & i were setting up a tent. just as we got it all staked into the ground & looking good, my sister showed up cradling a stuffed bear. i looked back at the tent & it had lost its shape. my solution? i hooked some pump thing up to the side of the tent & pumped it back to shape.
• the skyscraper/jitney dream - on sunday night/monday morn, i found myself in a skyscraper very similar to that in the final scene of fight club with a vendor from work & a guy i've been friends with since fifth grade but haven't seen much recently, as he lives in the u.k. i'm not sure why exactly, since things seem to be going pretty well for him these days, but he decided to throw himself out the window & plunge to his death. then the vendor & i got on a jitney bus & rode it around the west fens area of boston.

analyze that, mr deniro! anyway, i can't wait to see what the ol' subconscious has in store for me tonight. hopefully i remember it & hopefully it's another random hookup dream...those are my favorite kind.

#149 - only in dreams.
snack: stuffed grape leaves
drink: coney island albino python white lager



they say that you shouldn't eat right before bed. "you'll have nightmares," they say, but i say "whatevs" to that bit of old wives' tale science. a few nights back (the night where i had the dream of a makeout session with my FIPS acquaintance to be exact), about an hour before heading to bed i inhaled six stuffed grape leaves that i picked up at three guys from brooklyn, a relatively large market in my new hood. it's mostly filled with fresh produce & open 24-7 & although i'm not sure who needs to buy four different colors of peppers & a weird yellow plum at 3:30 in the morning, i guess the fact that the option exists can't be a bad thing.

as for the stuffed grape leaves, they came from the three guys olive bar & at just over a dollar for six of them, they're truly the poor man's delicacy. i first fell in love with stuffed grape leaves around the time when i first moved to the city & was hanging out in the lower east side quite often. at the end of the night, as my drunk ass stumbled to the F train, i pretty much always managed to stop by bereket & pick up a falafel sandwich & a bunch of stuffed grape leaves. they're a simple snack & these particular ones were stuffed with rice, spices & what i think were chick peas and covered with olive oil. if i had a lemon i would've squeezed some juice on them, but i forgot to pick one up. no big deal though. they tasted just fine without one. i was way too lazy & it was way too late to be going back out just for a lemon anyhow...not that time will ever again be an obstacle to citrus purchases for me.

i washed the stuffed grape leaves down with a big ol' 22 oz bottle of coney island albino python white lager, a beer made by saratoga spring's shmaltz brewing company, the same folks who make he'brew (the chosen beer). it's one of their coney island line of beers, a line which gets its inspiration from the coney island freak show & includes beers such as the sword swallower (a pale lager), the human blockhead (a red lager) & the mermaid pilsner, which is a nyc draft exclusive. i tried the human blockhead a few weeks back & enjoyed it quite a bit, but haven't had a chance to try any of the other ones. i'm sure that'll change though. after all, i like to drink quite a bit, so i'll probably come across one of the other ones soon enough.

while the the albino python was pretty good, it wasn't quite as good as the human blockhead. that's more a matter of my taste preferences than a statement on the quality of the beer though. it's a hazy, yellow beer brewed with ginger, crushed fennel & sweet orange peel. while i generally like hazy, yellow beers, i found the combo of ingredients slightly weird & a bit much. on the flip side, the citrus notes complemented the stuffed grape leaves quite well. on the plus PLUS side, once i passed out with my belly full of beer & stuffed grape leaves, i totally got some subconscious action. that's the stuff that dreams are made of!