Sleeping.

I have been having trouble sleeping lately.  It started a few months ago with your standard, run of the mill, wake your boyfriend up in the middle of the night, teeth grinding.  Then the jaw clenching, so I would wake up having to massage my jaw open again and wrestle the knots out of my muscles. Then the anxiety, and so on and so on. I'm taking measures to resolve these issues... but it gets (no pun intended) exhausting.

I know that this is mental. It's anxiety driven subconscious crap that comes from some deep dark place that is repressed. There is one fun part about this current state, sometimes, every once in a while, I will have these ridiculously vivid dreams that I can remember for the entire day.

Last night was one of those nights.

I had woken up several times in the night because of various reasons, already restless.

Finally drifting off into that half asleep, half awake place I am cognizant of the dreams that are being created, and of the fact that I am currently asleep. A very strange place for sure.

I am driving in my car, listening to music. I'm not sure where I'm headed, or what my intended goals are for the day.  My cellphone rings. I answer, and it is my old friend from freshman year in college, James.  James  is so excited on the phone, he is talking fast and I can hardly understand him, his zeal is infectious through the phone. Finally I get out of him his reason for calling me.

"I won you concert tickets on the radio!" he screams, getting out of breath.

James had been listening to a Baltimore radio station that gets picked up in Chestertown, Maryland, where we went to college together. I get the station here, in DC, but am not a fan of this particular station.  He happened to be listening at the exact moment where he needed to call in, got through, and won the tickets! He was so excited, but convinced the DJs to transfer the tickets to me, since I was much closer to the venue and would be able to go.

What, pray tell, what the concert that I had inherited these tickets to?

Linkin Park.

I thanked James for thinking of me, and I said I would give the other ticket to my sister, who I was sure would enjoy the concert despite the fact that neither one of us really likes Linkin Park. Why let perfectly good tickets go to waste? The concert was tonight and I had nothing better to do than listen to screaming rap-rock at loud volumes in Baltimore.

The rest of the dream involves me recounting how I got the tickets to very random acquaintances in my life, and ended with my sister and I arriving at the concert venue that evening.  We had to swim through a castle moat with trashy girls dressed like mermaids to enter the venue.  Soaking wet, we meet the DJs who are SO PROUD that my sister and I could make it, and that they were able to make such successful accommodations.

The entire dream I never referred to my friend James by his real name. He was either "Jimmy Jones," "James Jones," or I couldn't remember his name at all.

Oh, the benefits of having an anxious mind.