Sound sleep

Utter exhaustion hit me last night. I dragged the poor dog onto the couch with me and promptly fell asleep until she couldn't take it any more and wriggled away. While I did sleep, I dreamed in music for the first time. I've had dreams in which music has been playing in the background, usually a song I know (Radiohead's Pearly* is a stark memory) but this time it was all original music with no images. It sounded like a jam session actually because I remember almost controlling it, thinking a riff here or a drum fill there would sound great. And it did, of course. I don't think I'll ever write a song but now I know what it might feel like.

Music is of course an integral part of this trip. There is a lot of music on my computer and iPod that I haven't listened to, some of it dating back a few years. I am determined to get to it on this trip although I'm afraid that I will revert to listening to music I already know I like, even if it is just to stay awake.

I just finished reading Damon Galgut's The Impostor for review on Litmob. Quite an interesting novel about escape and an attempt at rejuvenation, which could be said to be the point of my trip. I am very much looking forward to getting away, not only from work but also from this city that I love and even my friends that I love. I think being away will rejuvenate those things and make me value them even more. Distance is a great tonic for good relationships, which sounds a bit surprising (to me) but isn't really.

Ah, Bubbles. I didn't like Bubbles at all when I first met her. She was, um, too bubbly for me, which is why Pierre came up with that nickname. I was dating Duda at the time and didn't pay much attention to her. One evening I ran into her while waiting to go see a play and realized how much into theater and music she was. We talked for a while and I realized that I'd definitely dismissed this rather interesting person out of hand. The day after Duda and I ended for good I went to a Luau with the business school, events I generally avoided. I had a blast, or more to the point, The Mullet had a blast. He also got a "date" with Bubbles to a musical on campus. I could never figure Bubbles out. Part of me though she was attracted to me but another part also felt that she really was just a bit bored. Maybe I'd been interesting at first and then outlived my usefulness (usually the case with me; I reveal too much of myself too soon). When I decided to go on my first road trip in my new car (the Toyota I drive now) after graduation, it was to Denver to visit my old roommate Jake and his fiancee Susan. On the way there, I talked to Bubbles on the phone and she suggested I visit her in Nebraska, where she was staying for the summer.

Denver was a lot of fun, and on leaving, I decided to drive through Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park on my way to Nebraska. The roads over there are the highest paved roads in the country; I was 12,000 feet up in my car. Driving down from that highpoint, I drove alongside the rushing rapids and saw the lodge where I decided I would spend my honeymoon if I ever did anything as conventional as marriage. When I saw those mountains I knew I wanted to live somewhere that had mountains and somehow Portland seemed like a good idea. Nebraska is probably the exact opposite of what I saw in Colorado, flat and rather boring. And that probably describes, perhaps a little harshly, my visit with Bubbles in Scott's Bluff. We had a decent enough time but she was rather awkward. My last night there we were supposed to drive to Cheyenne, Wyoming to watch a movie. In the end, I spent my evening playing Halo with her sixteen year old half-brother. And probably the best part of my visit up there was my first visit to a wind farm. This was a really small one, only 7 turbines, but it still had that weird presence that all wind farms have. It's like walking on a barren alien landscape and all of a sudden coming across evidence of intelligence and civilization. And speaking of intelligence, or the lack of it, I had to fend off a rather stubborn herd of cows to get the picture I wanted with one of the wind turbines. They just stared at me, chewing slowly, with this uncomprehending and slightly offended look in their eyes as I ineffectually yelled "shoo!" and "ha!" at them.

I went out again with Bubbles before I left Oklahoma. During dinner we talked about whether this was a date or not, which I believe worried her, and I told her it wasn't. I secretly had hoped that it could be but our moment, fleeting as it was, had gone. I still call her my rebound from Duda but it definitely wasn't a physical rebound, which would have been more fun. Maybe she still lives in Dallas and I'll see her on this trip. Would be fitting somehow.