Big Hair

She was always frail, and her afro-style hair tended to accentuate this. And she's the last person I'd expect to run into. But there she was, walking into that bar. I got up and walked over to her, hovering nearby until she recognized me. She didn't, and headed straight for what appeared to be her favorite barstool. I followed her and stood right next to her, but she didn't look my way until I said "I'm just going to stand here and hit on you until you notice." She took a sip out of her drink and said "Oh, I noticed." She took one more sip and continued "I hope you're quick with that marriage proposal, 'cause I'm hurting." That's when I noticed that she was hunched over, in obvious pain. She had the look of someone who didn't have much time left.

She was someone I never even casually flirted with back in the day, so it seemed a little out of character for me to have done so in the dream, but that's the way it happened. Her reaction was exactly as it might have been, though. Oddly enough, her hair was dyed a much lighter color than it actually was. But who's to say that isn't how it really is?

I hate crowds, hate being in a sea of people when I can't see where the crowd starts or where it ends. I suppose that's one of the reasons why I never go to Times Square for New Year's. That and the fact that it has never occurred to me to do so. But one of my dreams had me in that kind of crowd. I started out with my wife, but we got separated at one point. A cell phone might have come in handy, but I had left mine at home, on the night stand. And then, of course, I had my cell phone and tried to call her but I had some kind of alert message -- something like a "Geraldo Alert" on the phone, complete with its own blinking light -- and it was my wife, telling me where she was. Not that I could hear her above the din, and not that I knew where anything was in that dream town. So I just woke up and rolled over and headed for the next dream.