Between Sleeping And Waking

Strange place to be, isn't it?

The subconscious tells us some strange stuff.

A while ago I wrote in an entry that these days, even when I first wake up I am aware that I can't just jump out of bed. I don't even forget for a split second - that part of my brain has finally learned that I can't do that any more. Sometimes in that moment before I'm totally awake I'm not sure where I am - I think I'm in my old house in Philly and Daniel is in the next room - actually, that's a big one. I often think when I'm half asleep that I'm in that house and Daniel is somewhere nearby. Sometimes I think I'm in Italy or I'm in South Africa, and sometimes I even think that I'm in Africa and never left, and the past five years have all been a dream and I never really left at all.

But I always know I can't walk. I mean, not that I used to go to get out of bed and like fall on my face instead (although I did do that a couple times getting out of a car, but my defense for that is that drinking was definitely involved there) but there used to be this split second where I'd remember "oh yeah, I'm paralyzed now" or something like that. Not anymore.

OH BUT EXCEPT FOR TODAY.

B and I both have sleep issues. We both get up early but if we have to get up we never want to and have to be dragged out of bed. So he does this thing where he'll set his alarm and then put it on the other side of the room, so he has to get up to turn it off. I like to think I have better self-discipline than needing to do this, and anyway it would take me forever to actually get out of bed and across the room to turn off the alarm and that would drive me batshit first thing in the morning. He does stuff like turning the alarm off in his sleep and whatnot - I don't do shit like that, but I still feel like the only time I can really sleep soundly is when I'm supposed to be waking up.

Today, though, today my alarm went off and I grabbed the phone and threw it across the room. Before I was totally awake. What ever possessed me to do this? I don't know, ask my subconscious. So then there was my alarm going off (which is currently Ace of Base I Saw The Sign) over and over again, not the whole song just the ringtone, annoyingly, and there was me in bed on the other side of the room. So I went to get out of bed and was like, "oh yeah, I can't walk."

And the very next second I was like, "I can't believe I had to remember that."

At which point I'm completely awake and I'm all OH FUCK THAT and B wakes up halfway and is like, what is the matter with you? And I'm like, oh, I threw my phone over there and it's still going off - maybe you should go get it? Hint hint?

And he, he was like, no way, I'm going back to sleep, get it yourself. And promptly did exactly that (and was probably never awake to begin with because I said something to him about this later and he swears this entire event did not take place BUT IT DID) so my day began with a lovely vamp of "I Saw The Sign." For a good five minutes.

And apparently there is still a miniscule area of my brain holding out on me and refusing to retain the information that my legs no longer work.

Strangely, I find this extremely comforting. As if somehow it makes that fact just a tiny bit less true.

Go figure.

I-V-vi-IV

Any music geeks out there? Remember how I was all zomg over the fact that Viva La Vida uses the turnaround?

Check this out, yo! Not the turnaround, but another very popular chord progression...