Montage

On Friday the smoke alarm woke my brother and I up at three in the morning. Even the deaf dog heard it. It seemed to be telling us something.

"Go watch the opening games, you sleepy fools! Go!"

I felt like I had just recovered from a KO in a boxing match, and there was no question of staying awake. "What if it's Carbon Monoxide?" My sleepy hypochondriac brain screamed as I hugged my sheets. "Maybe it is..." my sleep-loving brain mused as I fell once again into dreamland. At 5 a.m. the smoke alarm went off again, this time alerting us to what he didn't know at the time - that Georgia had sent tanks into South Ossetia and hundreds were about to die.

We ignored it and returned to bed, crossing our fingers it would not go off any more.

But my sleep has continued to be disturbed by other things. Last night, I dreamt I was being chased by a man with a knife who I knew was going to kill me once he caught me. There were no "ifs" - I knew it was only a matter of time. According to a Google search, being-chased dreams (which are very common, I might add) point to unresolved conflicts and overall anxiety. Reading over the passages I wrote for The Book, I realized that the protagonist's thoughts are suspiciously like my own. Hmmm. Although I haven't exactly been feeling like an orphan with super-powers trapped in an oasis garden and given Martial Arts training. Or have I?

I've finished my 10,000 words of the book. It's frightening how quickly you can write 20 pages when you write two pages a day (Did you do the math? I just did.)

Now the battle is to make the book seem as though one person wrote it (which will take more than martial arts, let me tell you). We have to come up with a name for this combined author too. A compilation of our names won't make the cut, although I'll continue to fight for it. As my colleague Brennan suggested, Seaura Frattichgraw, anyone?

Back to the present, Diet Coke and beer does not make a bad combination.

Did I mention this post was a montage?

Montage is another way of saying: hey folks, my brain's a mess. Here's a painting I made.

2.5 weeks until I deliver this mess to Ottawa. Not in the delivering a baby sense - although according to one website about chase dreams, the dream is an episode hailing back to your own birth.

I'm pretty sure I was doped up when I was born, so that might make sense. The doctor probably WAS a monster with a knife. It all makes so much sense.

One of the triggers of this nightmare (other than the anxiety) was probably a story I read by Yann Martel called, "Manners of Dying." The story is a series of form letters from the warden of a prison to the mother of a young man executed by hanging. Each letter is slightly different, but each describes the last 12 hours of the young man, as though the warden was trying to figure out which version would give the mother the most closure and peace.

The trigger may have also been Buffy the Vampire slayer. They were trying to kill me with something that could have been a wooden stake.

So apparently Diet Coke will separate when added to beer. I've been drinking in the dark you see.

I've forgotten everything else I wanted to say.