Black Balloon Publishing. No coincidence.

To town

A few weeks ago, my daughter Annie and I went into Plainfield/Channahon for a visit.  We talked about everything and nothing, and as we drove into Plainfield and saw the “Welcome to Plainfield:  Mike Collins, Mayor” sign.  We joked about how surreal it was to see my dad’s name on the sign.

First to my mother’s house, where we admired her garden and visited with her and dad John and relaxed.  Then it was on to my brother’s new house in Channahon to visit with his kids and fur babies and my sister and her nieces.  It was unrushed.  We don’t often get to have visits like that one so we treasured every second.

Back to mom’s, where we had an amazing dinner of shishkabobs, all while having a watchful eye on the weather because it was going to pour later.

It was still light out when we departed for the 90 minute drive back to Rockford.  We headed back down route 126 heading to 47.

There are no coincidences.

As we’re driving, Annie looks out the window to her right and there is a solitary black helium balloon with a string floating across the field that will eventually cross 126.  If balloons could have intentions, I would say this one was determined to be seen.  As we passed it, we looked at each other, shocked. 

How random, Annie says.  What the eff was that all about?  What kind of sign was that supposed to be? 

Relax, I tell her.  It’s not a sign at all, just a balloon that escaped from someone’s Over the Hill party and happened to be blowing across the field right while we were driving.

But I can’t stop thinking about it on the way home.

Once there, I feed the husband and pet the dog; or was that feed the dog and pet the husband?  Either way, once I open my laptop, that black balloon is at the forefront of my brain and I immediately look up the term on Google.  It tells me there’s a song called Black Balloon, by the Goo Goo dolls. 

No, never heard of that song and I don’t like the Goo Goo dolls.  Next.

If I were dreaming, a black balloon would mean I’m depressed.  That’s not it either.

But then…guess what I came across.

Black Balloon Publishing. I click on it and the first thing I see is their motto:  “We Champion the Weird, the Unwieldy, and the Unclassifiable”.  In other words, stuff that I would write.

I don’t believe in coincidence, but I do believe in jumping to conclusions, and in this situation, I jumped higher than I ever have.

Immediately I “liked” their Facebook page and then went over to Twitter, where I began following them.  Unable to resist telling them how I found them, I sent a message.  What follows is pure magic.

swoon.

And to rachet up the squee factor a little bit more, when you click on the YouTube video they sent me, it’s Mariah Carey’s song “We Belong Together.”

Like I said, there are no such things as coincidences.

Sandman! Oh, Sandman!

For a while, I wasn't sleeping at all at night.  Total insomnia.  To the point that I started worrying a little bit after oh, say 9:00 p.m.  I built it up in my head.  I know I won't be able to sleep.  I know it.  I'll get into bed and lay there for hours.  I was tired, exhausted even; but the minute my head hit the pillow I laid there, wide awake. 

here's me.  not sleeping.

Things got better for a while, thanks to my good friend Southern Comfort.  I was able to break through whatever it was keeping me awake and actually get some real rest at night.  Whatever cycle I had been experiencing was over, apparently.  
 

At least, that's what I thought. 

 

It was a Sunday like many other Sundays.  The cars started. It rained but we didn't get water in our basement.  The dog didn’t run away.  Dinner was good.  Nothing earth shattering.   
 

However, Sunday night around 10:30 p.m., my husband and I kissed each other good night, as we always do, cuddled for approximately 10.7 seconds until it got wayyyy too hot, and then turned over to our respective spots.  I hadn't even given my sleeplessness a thought.  I burrowed further into the covers.   

And laid there.  A half hour went by.  I knew my husband was awake.  He knew I was awake too because he says my eyes make a sound when I blink.   

We laid there some more.  And laid there.  Another half hour went by and…  

…we’re still awake.  And I’m thinking, what the hell?  

I get up and pee to break the monotony.  I am quiet and careful, reluctant to jostle my husband or bounce the bed.  I know where the squeaky floorboards are and avoid them, drawing on years of experience with fretful babies and a father who worked midnights.  I don't use any lights, even in the bathroom.  I climb back into bed with the stealth of a ninja. 

Having taken care of that, I snuggle back down.  I think, any time now I’ll fall fast asleep.  I close my eyes and try to count sheep but end up mentally composing a story about them instead. 

I hear my son come in at midnight.  He doesn't wake me up because I'm not asleep.  He knows after years of sneaking in how to hold the bells on the door so they don't make a noise when he opens it.  He too is familiar with the floorboards and is able to avoid the squeaky ones.  He pees and goes to bed.   

Now my husband gets up to pee.  He is not silent and careful like I am.  He was a bachelor for 45 years and never had to be quiet for a sleeping wife or child.  Everyone knows he's up because he uses every light he can on the endless ten foot trip to the bathroom.  He has owned the home longer than my children have drawn breath and yet doesn't know the path to take on the wooden boards to avoid making excess noise. 

He stomps back to our room and swings himself back into bed like an orangutan, then proceeds to thrash around on the bed trying to get comfortable.  Good God, I think.  He moves more than a kid in a bouncy house. 

Unbelievable.  I wait until he is settled and I blink several times in a row, loudly, in retaliation. 

Shortly after he gets back to bed, my daughter is up.  She has inherited her mother's ability to walk catlike in a sleeping household.  She also has inherited her mother's sneakiness and I know she's going outside to have a cigarette.  She is fooling no one.    She too knows to hold the bells on the door as she comes back in and creeps back to her room, stopping in the bathroom, also to pee. 

Ok, I think.  Now that we’ve all ensured there would be no bedwetting, we’ll all get to sleep. 

Husband whispers to me.  "Are you awake?"

 

I whisper back. "Yes, what’s the deal with this?  I’m so tired and I just can’t fall asleep!  Is there some giant geometry test I didn’t study for?  A project I didn’t turn in?  Because the only time I can’t sleep is when I’m fretting.  And for the life of me, I don’t have anything to really fret about."

Husband whispers again. "I can’t sleep either!  And I think Annie is smoking!"

No shit, Sherlock, I think.  Only for like six months now.  Out loud, I say, "Gosh, I hope not."  And then I think, why are we whispering, anyway?  We're all awake.

During the course of the sleepless night from hell, husband ends up sleeping in the living room on his chair.  I must be experiencing some sort of menopausal symptoms, as I am either freezing or too hot, and eventually make my own way out to the living room as well where I lay wide eyed on the couch for two hours, with a floor fan three inches from my face.

4:41 a.m.  I haven’t slept at all.  I briefly drift off and dream I'm in a wind tunnel.

4:42 a.m.  Husband turns on a new age music channel on cable.  It reminds me of the nightmare that was his deviated septum surgical recovery and I fight the urge to throw up.

5:00 a.m.  We should probably just stay up.  However, I don't come from a family of quitters.  I get up and stumble down the hallway to the much more comfortable bed and that's all I remember, because I sink into the most blissful sleep anyone has ever experienced. 

For about one hour.  It's not enough.  I'm so tired and frustrated I want to punch someone.  However, it is at this time I smell fresh coffee. 

One thing my husband manages to do quite well is the coffee.  And I firmly believe that today, it's probably saving his life.

 

Smoking in bed

I woke up this morning with a terrible guilty conscience.  I actually smoked a cigarette while laying in bed right next to my husband, and when I was done with it, I put it out in a plastic cup with half an old beer in it.  Sooooo sexy.

because I'm pretty sure I was wearing this in my dream. 

Other people dream about winning the lottery, or playing baseball, or having sex with Brad Pitt.  (for the record, Brad Pitt is not anywhere on my to-do list.)

But what do I dream about?  Smoking and putting it out in a nasty, warm cup of beer?  What is THAT all about? 

I looked it up in my dream journal and there were several blatherings on about what it could mean to smoke in your dream.  The biggest one was that "to use it warns you against enemies and extravagance."   Well, that really made me laugh because those who know me know that I am not close to extravagant.  That is unless you count bringing two cheese sticks to work instead of one extravagant.  Then hell yes, I am.  I like cheese, all right?

And enemies?   I don't have any.  Well, there was that lady at the grocery store who eyed my typed grocery list enviously.

What did catch my attention was the part where they discuss what it means to dream about liquor. 

"For a woman to dream about drinking or handling liquor foretells for her a happy Bohemian kind of existence.  (yes, that's true.) She will be good natured but shallow minded.  (shallow minded, yes, yes, also true.)  To treat others, she will be generous to rivals, and the indifference of lovers or husbands will not seriously offset her pleasures or contentment."  (How do they KNOW ME like this?)

I was surprised that the book says nothing about laying next to your husband smoking a cigarette on the sly and then putting out a cigarette in a plastic cup of beer.  Hm.  It would seem to me that this type of dream would be had by a great many people and an entire chapter should be devoted to it.  Surely I can't be the ONLY ONE.

However, I think sometimes the interpretive dream books sometimes miss the point altogether.  Sometimes your dreams are as simple as you saw something on TV, or a certain conversation you had, or what you saw on line or heard at work.  For instance, I dream about writing a lot.  Makes sense, since I write a lot.  I dream about babies because I have a new granddaughter.  I dreamed about smoking because sometimes I miss it, even though I quit back in 1999.

As for the beer, I think they nailed it. 

I'm a good natured Bohemian-like, laid back kind of gal, and I like to drink.

Welcome to my world!

No more ice cream at night for this gal.

So last night I had a dream that we had a remote control which we kept in a puffy stuffed graduation cap, which sat on the coffee table.  You could spin it to change the channel.

Except that my former co worker, Melinda, suddenly came into view and said that she had been looking for that cap everywhere, and needed it back.  Unfortunately it had dry rotted and was falling apart.  I gave it back to her anyway.  I remember thinking how mad she would be that it was falling apart and the stuffing was coming out.  Sorry I couldn’t take better care of it Melinda.

Apparently I have two apologies to make today:  to Melinda, for the fact that we ruined her graduation cap/spinning, dry rotted stuffed remote control holder, and to my hubby, since I had to give it back to Melinda, thus leaving us with no remote control.

that is all.