the crazy stops here…every fifteen minutes

In an valiant effort to defeat my mortal enemy- insomina- I picked up some chamomile tea at the grocery store last week. I was a little skeptical, because Sleepytime tea turned out to be ’stay up all night writing and surfing the innerwebs’ tea. This is the Stash brand, which I’ve heard good things about, and it does give me the yawn and nods.

It also gives me super crazy dreams.

My dreams have always been very vivid, and have never made much sense (when held to the standards, of say, viable fiction or the waking world), but this is getting… ridiculous.

Thursday night, I had a dream that I woke up and there was a cheetah in my living room. It had baby kitten cheetahs. My house cats were carrying baby cheetahs around in their mouths. I was the only one who was bewildered- they were all “yeah, we have a cheetah now, and it has babies. get with it, already.” I fed the house cats, and the cheetah wandered into the kitchen and started head-butting me in the thigh, so I pulled a steak out of the fridge (I don’t generally *keep* steak on hand, but I had one in my dream), and hand-fed her. She rubbed her big cat cheetah muzzle against my hand, and I was worried about what might happen if she served up a love bite, the way the house cats do when they’re being snuzzled on. Before I could find out, I woke up.

Last night? Last night takes the cake.

My Dad stole a baby for me.

I was in bed, fast asleep, when my Dad let himself into my house. He put a baby in my bed, and I tried to question him, and he said we would discuss it when he’d had some sleep. I moved some pillows around, moved to the middle of the bed, and went back to sleep. Holding a baby.

When we woke up in the morning, I asked Daddy if he had anything to feed the baby, and he jumped up.

“Yeah, I stole the diaper bag too. I know about babies. There’s some formula in there.”

“Okay, Dad? Why did you steal me a baby?”

“You said that I couldn’t give you babies, but I figured out how. It’s gonna be great- the Mom looks a lot like you.”

“But, Dad, what I said was that you can’t be the only man I need because I would like to have a family someday. Someday, Dad, with a husband. What the hell am I going to do with a baby? Do you know how hard it’s going to be to raise a baby on my own? And this is going to make dating awkward, to say the very least…”

“Well, you can’t return a stolen baby.”

“Dad, how am I going to afford this kid? Babies need stuff. Tons and tons of stuff, and I have to work, and I can’t take a baby to work.”

“I’ll give you some money, but you can’t return a stolen baby.”

Then I realized the the formula he was talking about had been premixed and sat out in the car all night, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t good anymore. My father then suggested that if I tried hard enough to nurse the baby that “nature would take its course”.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

Part of me wants to stop drinking the tea, and the other part can’t wait to find out what weirdo dream it will give me next.

** there is not even the slightest possibility that I am pregnant. this was suggested to me by a coworker, who now sports a bruise on his shin. **

My backyard is split into thirds by a steep little hill. It’s not suitable for the riding mower or a push mower. Anyone who has ever attempted to weed-wack it has been rewarded with angry yellowjackets. My landscaper asked me what I wanted done with it.

“It needs to be burned, and when that’s done, I’m pulling the ivy that’s taking over my screened-in porch out of the front bed and giving it a place to do what ivy does- go wild and choke everything else out.”

He shook his head.

“I can’t do that. I mean, I could, but I won’t. Something could go wrong, and I don’t want to be responsible for burning your house down.”

He didn’t know it, but he was the third man in as many weeks to deliver such a message. Metaphorically, anyway.

I choose to see the refusals- all of them- as an overture of respect. There’s a certain amount of trust involved in setting fires; if someone doesn’t trust themselves or the fire or their fellow fire-setters, the kind and responsible thing to do is bow out before the match is lit. There is honor in admitting that you’re not willing to take responsibility.

My therapist once asked me why the ambivalence of others towards me provoked my legendary impatience and irritation.

“Well, what’s so difficult about it? Either you like me enough to see what happens, or you don’t. What is there to ponder on?”

He giggled softly (yes, he’s quite feminine and quite married, and it is these two things that allow him to patch up my weak spots without my falling in love with him).

“You don’t think that someone might need time to decide whether or not to take on an involvement with you?”

My irritation turned towards him and his smug humor.

“You make deciding to dating me sound like deciding to enter a religion. Seriously, am I that damn difficult?”

Now he openly roared with laughter, and this made me so angry I could feel my cheeks reddening.

“Dating you is an entirely worthy pursuit, sure, but not one to be taken lightly. You are a formidable woman, and your ignorance of it is amusing as it is surprising. You are just too much for some men, who might prefer a wife happy to fetch their slippers and keep a cold beer in their hand. You are willing to do that, I know, but the price they pay for the privilege might be outside of their emotional and intellectual capacities.”

I couldn’t be angry with him anymore, because I know exactly what he means.

On Friday, I read this:

“I have had many, many great teachers in my life. A super abundance. No one and nothing comes close to the woman who is now asleep in the bedroom. My marriage has become the guru, the salvation, the muse, the crack through which the divine shines through.”

Really, as far as dating and marriage and family go, I’m not very interested in anything less than that ideal as the objective. I’ve seen the misery of love that falls short of it, and I’d rather be alone.

I’ll wait for the guy who asks me to get him a beer while he hooks up the hose, and strikes the match with a twinkle in his eye.