Monday, January 27, 2003

Night Tremors

Once upon a dream

I had a strange dream last night. Right before I went to bed, I watched an episode of Andromeda where they were hopping around the timeline, and earlier in the weekend I had watched Back to the Future, so no doubt that's why I found myself time-traveling in dreamland. But I didn't get to bop around space with my wacky cohorts or go to a 50's sock-hop with my teen-age parents. No, I went somewhere/somewhen pre-industrial. In typical dream fashion I "knew" that the deck of Tarot cards I was carrying was responsible for my trip to the past and that they could be used to get me home again. But naturally once I realized this, the cards were nowhere to be found. I found the man I thought was responsible for taking the cards, but he denied ever having seen any Tarot card before, let alone my deck, but then a large chest fell over and revealed itself to be full of Tarot cards, and I was certain my deck was among them. We began to scuffle, and he managed to grip my arm with his hand, and I noticed that his hand was very abnormal, long, spidery, and strong. I couldn't free myself, and with his other hand he had a knife which he raised over his head and swung down towards me...

Bump in the night

Sometimes when a noise wakes me up, I still have the sound of it in my head when I attain consciousness. One night I remember sitting up in bed with a strange sound resonating through my brain. I found my half-awake mind thinking, "It sounds like one of my room mates has thrown one of those big, ribbed, metal trash cans into the bathtub. Why would they do that? Where did they get the can?" But then I heard noises from outside and looked out my window to find that a car had just slid on the ice and hit a parked car. No trash cans nor bathtubs were involved, but some insurance companies were sure to be in the near future. That's how it was waking up from last night's dream. My mind was holding two overlapping memories: that of the dream and that of a sound, but not a confusing, mysterious sound. It was the sound of a heavy footfall on a hardwood floor. It was a sound I was used to because my upstairs neighbor makes that sound often at all hours. It seems he thinks the wee hours of the night is the perfect time to perfect his Boris-Karloff-as-Frankenstein's-Monster impression. Although maybe I'm not giving him enough credit. Maybe he's not being unduly loud and inconsiderate. Maybe he really is reanimating dead tissue up there. I should be thanking him for having the presence of mind to not also be yelling, "It's alive! It's alive!!!"

Intruder Alert

Still there's a paranoid part of my brain, particularly active when I've just avoided a knifing by my dream nemesis, that had to ask, "Was the foot fall from upstairs, or from my apartment?" At 4:AM, that's a question that can occupy your mind, especially when you've been broken into twice in the past year and when the prison is in your back yard. I began to stare at the door that leads from my bedroom to the front room. The front room gets light from the street light (when it's working) and the porch light, so the outline of the door shows up fairly well in the otherwise pitch black of my room. Even so, the more I stared at it, straining my eyes and ears, the more it seemed to show up a little too well. I always close the door until it latches, so that every bit of heat my heater puts out stays trapped in my room, but the more I looked at the door, the more it looked like the door had to be slightly ajar to be letting in so much light. In fact, the more I looked at the door, the more it looked like the light coming in was increasing, like the door was slowly opening.

Does Shatner still do Rescue 911? Because now could be my chance to meet him.

So now it's time to panic. Someone is in my apartment. I have the only key. Do I make a noise and try to scare them away? Do I prepare for a struggle? How do I prepare for a struggle? I decide to call 911. The intruder may hear me and run away, but whether he does or not, it'll be good to have the police on the way. I reach out for the chair where I had set the phone, but I can just reach the edge of it. I can either shift my weight and stretch out to reach the phone, which will alert the intruder that I am awake and force me to take my eyes off the door, or I can pull the chair towards me, which will probably make more noise, but at least I'll be able to keep an eye on the door, so that's what I do. A quick scoot, and the chair is right next to me, the phone is in my hand, and door remains the same, or is, perhaps, opening at the same snail-pace it had been opening at. I lift the receiver, but then realize that I may not be able to pick out the 9 and the 1. A new dilemma. Do I fumble around in the dark or turn on the light? My heater starts giving a little clicks, a sign that in about 20 seconds the blower is going to kick on. While many bits of logic are floating around my brain, moving too slowly to be noticed by my racing mind, one piece sticks: If I was burgling an apartment, the sound of the heater would make a good cover to continue my activities at full pace. So with my eyes glued to the door and the phone in one hand, I reach out to turn on my desk lamp. I'm hoping the light scares him away, or that it at least gives me time to dial. With a small click, the light goes on and the entire room is illuminated.

Why this never happens to Mr. Spock

The door is shut. Perfectly, solidly shut. It didn't swing closed as the light came on, but was already closed. My eyes were glued, unblinking, to it the entire time, and that, I realize, is my problem. Some of those logical thoughts that had been left behind were now catching up. Staring at the one small source of light in my darkened room, as my eyes adjusted, the light seemed to increase, as if the door was opening. If I hadn't already been keyed up from my imaginary knife fight, I never would have noticed the effect. I'm glad I didn't actually get the phone dialed. They'd have to come out and then radio in, "It's okay. It's just some 30 year old guy who's afraid of the dark." And, being that my mouth is often a step ahead of my brain, I probably would have corrected him, "I'll be 31 next week." Way to go.

Sleep over

I could have played the whole thing off as a part of my dream, a flight of fancy. I could have pretended, to myself, to preserve a little dignity, that I never really thought anyone was in my house, but for the fact than when sanity was restored, I still had the telephone in my hand. I would have dialed 911. I would have made an absolute fool of myself, but I got lucky. And now no one will ever know...
So I got up, made sure the door was latched, which it was, made sure the front door was locked, which it was, put that little chain on the door, for added security, and went back to bed. To sleep, perchance to not dream. No perchance of that. It took an hour before I dozed back off to the sounds of my upstairs neighbor getting in some much needed clogging practice. I love having an apartment all to myself, most of the time. It turns out that 4:AM to 5:AM is one of the few times I could stand to have room mate. I guess that's why I usually sleep through that hour. That's also why I prefer to watch horror movies only when I have overnight guests. I really want to get the other two Evil Dead movies, but what's the point? I lost enough sleep watching the first one. So if someone wants to sleep over, let me know, and I'll complete that facet of my movie collection, but for the next couple of nights, I'm going to finish the evening with a Jack Lemon movie or an episode of Seinfeld. My dreams will be funny, but at least they'll be rubber chicken funny rather than talking to the cops at 4:AM funny.

posted 2:42 PM

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

The Shame

Confessions of a TV junkie

I admit I have a problem. That may be the first step, but it's also the only one I've ever taken. Still, while I'm hopelessly hooked on Buffy, Star Trek, and a variety of sit-coms and dramas, I have avoided the plague of "reality" shows that have infested the airways. I dabbled in the first season of Real World, but since then, I've steered clear of them.

I wish would just stop hassling me.

Since the first time the television camera man accidentally panned over and caught the gaffers on film (which elicited the following exchange: "Hey! You got reality in my television!" "Hey! You got television in my reality!"), reality television has been in a downward spiral, and this week we may have hit bottom. With Fox's new show, Joe Millionaire, they've really gone too far. It's a show that's designed to bring out the worst in people. It's horrible. It's deplorable. How could they sink so low? And how could you not watch?

Resistance is Futile

The nice thing about JM is that it really lowers the bar. I've been a closet Everwood fan since its second month on the air, but I've never wanted to admit that I actually watch the super-sappy, whitebread show. But no more. I'll admit that I watched last night's episode, in which the town of Everwood learns that one of its respected citizens had been growing medicinal marijuana in her greenhouse. What made this episode for me was the little Reggae beat they slipped in here and there. Reggae is as out of place on the Everwood soundtrack as Trent Lott at a Black Panther's rally. But I digress (I really just wanted to use the T. Lott line), my point is that at 9:PM, when Boston Public ended, I got up and changed the TV to the WB rather than watch Joe Millionaire.
The VCR, however, remained tuned to Fox with a tape whirring away...

Serenity Now!

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;		Like the fact that I already taped Joe Millionaire
The courage to change the things I can;		But I don't have to watch it.
And the wisdom to know the difference.		...between entertainment and a really bad idea.

posted 5:36 PM