Bird Brain

My new status has involved a few side effects. By "new status" I mean pregnant. I'm saying it out loud here. Watch out world, David and I are reproducing.

I have been lucky, however, and have not really suffered. In fact, I feel pretty good. Even though I have not been puking, I have recently discovered a powerful side effect that can do almost as much damage -- I am losing my mind. I occasionally have trouble remembering the simplest of things. I can walk into another room (or even another building on campus) and then ask myself "What am I doing here?" I have to stop myself sometimes (and say "wait" out loud which causes David no end of entertainment) when I am mid-thought because I lose track of said thought.

This morning I got up to go to First Friday Mass as I have been doing since June. For the last three months I have been going to a church that is not our parish church because it is closer to work and has a mass time that allows me to get to work on time. I have convinced myself that getting up so freaking early in the morning is a penance that I can handle once a month. I reminded David last night that I was going to mass today. We scheduled our bathroom visits accordingly. I was surprised this morning when things went smoothly. I didn't feel rushed. I didn't think it was so bad.

On my way to mass I remembered that the first time I went to this church the mass was so short that I was able to go to mass, go home to pick up David, take him downtown to work, stop and get a bagel, and then still make it back up to the Northwest Side to work on time. Because I am losing my mind, this didn't register -- how could all of this be possible after a mass that starts at 7:30am? Well, my friends, it is not possible because mass does not start at 7:30, it starts at 7:00. I arrived (proud of myself for being a couple of minutes early) to find the priest wiping the chalice and getting ready to give the final blessing. It took me a whole two minutes to realize he was finishing the mass, not getting ready to start it. I am sure the other eight people in the church thought I was nuts. I, of course, acted casual -- like I meant to come at the end of mass. Then I stuck around for one-half of the recitation of the Holy Rosary before I jetted to the nearest IHOP.

I got to IHOP (it's near work, I like breakfast, I will not argue about it here), got a paper, and told myself to skip bacon on account of having skipped mass. I settled in while I waited for pancakes, eggs, and oj. I had just started reading the paper when I became convinced that I was hearing voices -- voices that sounded like Bing Crosby. I was relieved to learn that I am not crazy (well, not hearing voices crazy) when I heard a man in a booth behind me ask the waitress why they were playing Christmas music. Whew. It turns out that the restaurant plays the local easy listening station. I knew that the station played holiday music 24/7, but I thought that was something they did starting Thanksgiving weekend -- you know, during the holidays.

Twice in the last month I have had crazy, yet vivid and convincing, dreams. The kind of dreams that do not allow you to sleep restfully because the conscious side of your brain is not allowed to rest as it is repeatedly screaming "What the hell?" in the back of your brain.

The first dream involved a vivid and realistic understanding that David had left me. It culminated in a dream sequence on a sunny fall afternoon. I was alone and outside somewhere where there are stores and restaurants. The weather was cool but sunny and the leaves were at the height of autumn glory. I was walking past a small place with outdoor seating and thinking how it would be nice to sit outside and get something to eat when I spotted David with another woman. I knew in my head that we were over, but it made me so sad (and I really wanted to eat there). She had long hair and a black leather jacket that looked super on her -- a black leather jacket like you find at Talbots, not the Harley Davidson store. I watched David get down on one knee and propose. And I wanted to die. It wrecked my whole day even though I knew it was just a stupid dream.

Two nights ago I had another wild dream. I dreamt that David and I had moved back to Urbana so that I could finish my PhD. (You may recall that shortly after my graduation this was more in the nightmare category for me.) We moved back into a small house that I had purchased while in grad school and then sublet when I moved to Chicago. I knew all of this in the dream. It made so much sense. I knew that all of the stuff in house was mine even though I didn't recognize it. There were some great 1950s chairs in the living room with beautiful upholstery. The bedroom was in the back of the house. It had a tiny tiny bed and a huge alarm clock -- huge like it needed handle to move it huge. I opened the chest of drawers to find neatly folded clothes that I knew were mine and that were covered with a thick layer of dust.

Something distracted me -- something from the living room. David called out and said that he needed a pillowcase. I took the tiny pillowcase from the tiny pillow on the tiny bed and found David in the living room trying to corner an angry rattlesnake. I told him to leave it alone. I'm not sure what happened with the snake because the next thing that happened in the dream was the two of us trying to sleep in the tiny bed. We couldn't sleep because the little house next door was having a huge loud party. That's a college town for you. The party raged and raged until finally David decided to go next door. I was looking out the bedroom window into the backyard of the house next door. People started coming out the back door of the house. I was expecting loud, drunk grad students. But since I am losing my mind, the party-goers in my dream were middle-aged Korean ladies. They each had perfectly coifed hair and a really nice dress on. The dresses were all black and white. I did not wonder how it was that these nicely-dressed women were at such a raucous party. No, I stood at the back window and wondered where these ladies got their beautiful dresses because I was sure you could not find such nice things at the mall in Champaign….

If anyone reading this is of such a mind or expertise to interpret these dreams for me, please keep the interpretations to yourself. I am not really interested in any confirmation that I am losing my mind.