i didn’t even get to throw the bouquet

Okay, that’s it.  I’m not drinking Red Bull before a show any longer.

I have a nice energy boost and everything, what with all the chemicals they put in that thing, but the nightmares that I have at night are simply terrible.  I had my first Red Bull Saturday night and slept horribly.  I kept dreaming that someone was chasing me and trying to kill me.  Eric said he woke me up about three times that night because I was kicking and yelling.

I thought briefly about the Red Bull, but then decided it was just me being really tired that caused the dreams.

Well, last night before the show I had another Red Bull because I was feeling really tired and I had the worst dream last night.

It was one of those dreams where you wake up going, “Oh, man.  It’s just a dream.”

Okay, so in the dream I’m getting married to Eric.  But for some reason this wedding was just sort of thrown together.  I don’t even think I’m wearing a bridal gown.  There’s all sorts of people there that I know, but they all look miserable– like I’ve called them to a meeting.  We have to wait in line for the couple before us to get married so that I can, and then when it’s time we’re married before I even know what’s happening.  There’s like, no ceremony at all.  Then the photographer is pulling on my arm, “Hey, I forgot to take any pictures, so could you guys all stand in the center here and pretend you’re having a good time?”

So we’re all fake dancing in the center of this room where there’s all these overturned chairs and tables and it’s a mess and I see my reflection and I look terrible.  I start trying to cheer all of my friends up, but they don’t want to talk to each other, so some of them have moved on to other rooms and some are hiding and some are just getting drunk.  I try to go out the front but someone stops me and says that my mother is out there getting the cake ready and getting my presents together.

I was really mad because some of my best friends didn’t show up, but people who I think are only nice to me in person but are evil behind my back all were there, trying to kiss my cheek and tell me how happy they were for me.

I go to try and cheer someone else up, who for some reason is sitting on a wall with a couple of people I knew from high school and she tells me that I’m not going to get any cake if I don’t hurry.

She was right.  The cake was all gone.  The presents were in a jumbled pile by the door and quite a mess.

I walked outside and sat in the grass.  There were some Star Wars action figures there, so I picked them up and started playing with them like dolls.  I made a little box-chair and was pretending that the Star Wars guys had gone to a strip club and the girl action figures were dancing for them.  People were walking by and staring, but I didn’t care.  I started rolling in the grass and creating this whole world for my action figure dolls just like I did when I was a kid.  Some guy came up to me and told me that he didn’t know what to get me for my wedding gift because I never registered anywhere and he had no idea what I would like.  That’s when it all hit me.  I was married, I had no wedding presents that were any good, and I couldn’t remember the ceremony.  Then I sort of woke up in the dream and realized that I was in the bed alone.  I was very upset that the last thing I remembered about my wedding night was playing with Star Wars action figures.

I went to my computer and sat down to make my Squishy entry and I thought to myself, “What am I going to tell everyone?  They are expecting me to type ‘Well, I’m a taken woman, now.  Everything was beautiful.  All went just as planned.  Off to Cancun!’  But instead I want to write, ‘Could someone tell me what the fuck happened?   Why did I spend my wedding night alone?’”

I went and found Eric, who was sleeping alone in a bed.  He looked like he had been out drinking all night long.  I woke him up.  “Hey,” I said, shaking his leg, “What happened last night?  I never saw you?”

“Well, you were asleep,” he said, “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I just remembered we never planned a honeymoon.”

“Well, you needed this wedding so badly, I guess it never occurred to you that we could use this ceremony as a chance to better our lives together.”

“We didn’t get any presents.  We got one thing that looked like it wasn’t an ash tray, and it’s a battery charger.”

“We didn’t get any money.”

“We don’t have anything to do now.  I don’t even really remember it.”

“That’s fucking great.”

“I just feel like maybe you are mad at me,” I said to him.

“Really?  Why do you think that?”

“Well, I just feel like maybe you didn’t want to get married to me and you were doing it to be nice and now you hate me.  I think you think we made a mistake.”

Eric’s face somehow morphed into David Spade’s:  “Oh.  You think?”

And I woke up yelling.

I’ve had wedding nightmares before.  Once I dreamt that I was sitting around watching the sunset, and for some reason I knew that I had taken LSD, and since I’ve never taken LSD in my life I was curious as to what it would do to me.  I was able to sit in the air and lean back like I was in a rocking chair and watch the sunset.  When it was all over, I walked home feeling really safe– until I accidentally walked onto a highway, and the concrete sides were too high and I thought I was going to be killed.  When I made it home there was a huge party in my driveway and everyone was hugging me and telling me how beautiful I was.  I asked my mother what everyone was talking about and she said, “Your wedding, silly.”

I looked down at my hand and I had a ring there.  The boyfriend that I had at the time really wanted to get married and I didn’t, and in this dream he had drugged me, planned and went through a wedding.  That’s when I knew it was time to get out of the relationship.  I was so upset that I had missed my wedding.

Another wedding dream about the same wedding-obsessed boyfriend involved us having a wedding on a stage where the one rule about the ceremony was that everyone had to be naked.  I remember everyone trying to cover up my 4’10” Vietnamese naked roommate, who was shouting at me that the Buddhists did not think this was necessary.  I was so embarrassed, looking off that stage and seeing everyone naked.  (I guess it came from that old theatre trick of handling stage fright– imagine they’re all in their underwear).

So, no more Red Bull.  I don’t care how much energy it gives me.  It makes me weird.  When Eric woke me up this morning, I looked at him and said, “Oh, man.  It was just a dream.  It was a dream.  Thank God.”

Eric started falling back asleep.

[scripty]
PAMIE
Baby?

ERIC
Yeah, sweetie?

PAMIE
It was just a dream.

ERIC
I know.  Go back to sleep.

PAMIE
It was terrible.

ERIC
Shhh.

Two minutes later the alarm goes off and Eric hops in the shower.  Pamie gets out a piece of paper to write down the dream so she doesn’t forget.  She gets all mad again as she jots down the bits and pieces as they come to her.

ERIC
(toweling off)
What are you doing?

PAMIE
I don’t want to forget the dream.

ERIC
Oh.

PAMIE
Yeah.

ERIC
Yeah.

INSIDE PAMIE’S HEAD
Well, ask me!

INSIDE ERIC’S HEAD
Where’s my left shoe?  I thought I left it by the bed.

PAMIE
Well?

ERIC
Yeah?

PAMIE
Do you want to know what happened in my dream?

ERIC
Well, I’ve got to get to work, but you can tell me while I get ready.

PAMIE
Forget it.

INSIDE PAMIE’S HEAD
You’ll probably just cock your head to the side and say “You think?”  So mean to me once we got married.

ERIC
Are you okay?

PAMIE
Fine.  I’m gonna take a shower.

INSIDE PAMIE’S HEAD
He probably made someone give us that battery charger.  That is so like him.

ERIC
You feel okay?  You look a little grumpy.

INSIDE PAMIE’S HEAD
What do you care?  Stay out all night getting drunk on our wedding night.

PAMIE
I’m fine.

INSIDE PAMIE’S HEAD
Why am I mad at him for something he did in a dream?  I’m being stupid.  No, I’m not, he was really mean.  He should apologize.

ERIC
I’ll see you later.

PAMIE
Okay.

INSIDE PAMIE’S HEAD
Maybe.  Unless I get married on my way home.

PAMIE
It’s time for me to take a shower.

ERIC
What, sweetie?

PAMIE
Nothing!  Just talking to the cat!

INSIDE PAMIE’S HEAD
Because the cat would plan a honeymoon.
[/scripty]

No more Red Bull.  I mean it.