Sleep or Something Sort of Like That

I slept last night. I know I slept because when my alarm went off this morning, I opened my eyes and I was awake. However, it didn't feel like sleep. I had a couple of very vivid dreams and, what's worse, they had an effect on me that I'm still reeling from.

One of the dreams -- the frightening one -- was about me and, more specifically, me dying from brain cancer. This dream was most likely caused by my having read an article (in Glamour magazine of all places -- long story how I ended up with that) written by a person who took care of her terminally ill sister, who had brain cancer. I like real life stories like that... I'm a little morbid... and it usually doesn't effect me very much. I feel sad about the article and I think, "Oh. That's sad" and I some times write a song about it, but I usually move on. Typically, dreams of my own demise (of which I have had many in the thirty plus years of my existence) have the same effect. Which is why, this time, I am having a difficult time figuring out how to feel right now. I'm stunned. Shocked. My heart: barely pounding. My mind: stuck. I'm numb to the core and, yet, I shouldn't be. I dream about dying all the time and I always awake to a normal day. Why is today different?

The other dream that I had -- which was not nearly as frightening, but was equally as vivid (so much so that I feel like it actually happened, and so now I am worrying about the ramifications of what had occurred) -- was about me running into an ex-girlfriend, who -- incidentally -- didn't quite remember who I was, but had an inkling of a thought that we had met once at an event. Dream me (because the you in your dreams is never really the you in real life, nor are the other people in your dreams really like the other people in your real life), had no idea what event she was talking about and kept reexplaining how we we were in a relationship at one time. Weird...

And so I am writing about it in hopes of getting my mind off of it...





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At Lena's this week, I interviewed Gail Sparlin for Inside the Open Mic. I should work on the video tomorrow and have it done by early next week.

It was very crowded at Lena's and the crowd was a good one. Full and attentive = perfect. There were also a lot of non-regulars and a lot of talented ones at that. It was an amazing night and I think I said so when it was my turn to play. I don't know if was the playing after a talented three some or the large crowd, but I raised the bar for my own performance. And I totally nailed the songs I played, too. I played my best -- like I was playing in my room, which is something that you don't do often when you are playing on a stage.

I played Jessie by Joshua Kadison and Lonely 'ol Night by John Mellencamp. The arrangement for Lonely 'ol Night is quite different from the recorded version of the song and -- as such -- I get lots of compliments on it. I like compliments. However, I didn't create the arrangement; I found it on YouTube. Mellencamp played the song solo with this arrangement and I loved it so I learned it.