synapses firing, wakeless dreams

I'm a little amused at myself that for the past two and a half months, I've been completely confused as to why I've had vivid, bizarre, pillow-grippingly anxious nightmares almost every single night.

Seriously. I've counted. And since May 15th, I've had nine nights without nightmares. And more than 1/3 of the scary ones were the cliff-hanging, sitting bolt upright in bed with beads of sweat on your forehead kind of dreams.

It's like I'm in a bad movie, where I'm supposed to fling my sweaty bangs toward the camera lens and look up, gasping for breath under a fisheye angle to make the audience throw their popcorn in the air and say "eeee". Well, it is a bad movie-- the B movie of my life, starring my weird-ass subconscious.

So that part isn't amusing. But what IS amusing is that I didn't figure out *why* sooner... I guess it's no coincidence that I've been pretty darn sick since mid-May, with some kind of (appendix?)-tissue infection that turned into an abdominal infection, paired (coincidentally) with gnarly ovarian cysts and about three solid weeks of doctors visits and lab tests on everything from my thyroid to whether or not I'm an alien. And just for kicks, the nazi regime antibiotics I had in my system for 17 days were way too strong for me, and now I'm sick from *those* bastardos.

Moral of the story: fever dreams usually mess with you, but are easy to recover from because they happen one night when you get really sick. But drag them out for 68 days, and things get weird. Super weird. And everything that you see or hear relates to one of your nazi-regime-antibiotic enhanced dreams, but you can't tell anyone about it, because a) crazy, and b) boring.

So I won't bore myself to tears by writing them down, but I will say that
1. yes, if I've ever met you, you were in at least one of them
and 2. yes, there was blood and gore and really scary suspense movie stuff there
and 3. no, I don't feel as comfortable hanging out with you now

As if that wasn't enough to mess with me, I recently thought about what kind of *movies* I've been watching lately, and I actually started laughing. I'm an idiot. Sick body fighting off infections + hot summer nights +scenes from THESE movies?! It's amazing I've slept at all. :)

here's a sample from the past two weeks (except for Notes on a Scandal, but that was within the anecdote at hand too)




Dog Day Afternoon... A+. Al Pacino is my boyfriend-- it's his best acting (tied for first with Godfather 1). Just finished it 30 minutes ago.





The Conversation... A+. Watched it twice last week, and now I'm reading "The Conversations / Walter Murch and the art of editing film" by Michael Ondaatje. Amazing amazing editing.






Pan's Labyrinth...solid B+. Watched it last week with Brian. Amazing costume and CGI, beautifully braided stories, the graphic violence went a little too far into the "shock me, I'm from the MTV generation!" category, and I must admit that del Torro's ... well, I won't spoil it, but he has a kinky pleasure in his movies that's offputting. Wicked creepy, though.




Notes on a Scandal... A-. Saw it with Beth, loved every second until the climax, where it got a little hysterical, but very amazing character portrait. Nicely simple and not maudlin in many ways... Blanchette and Dench are two of the best actresses working today (in my opinion)





Match Point... B. Watched it with Brian, waaaay better this time (the first time, I'd just been dumped and had my first martini...or three... and so I gave it a clean slate for the second screening). Beautiful cinematography, classic Allen love triangle gone horribly paranoid, but next to Crimes and Misdemeanors? Seems like a squishier theme on the best movie ever made. (top five, at least)



The Sopranos. A+, with the exception of David Chase's Ego-- er, the last episode. I've watched so many episodes in the last two months, I carry a dog named Cosette and only answer to the nickname "Aid..." oh, I miss my dysfunctional Jersey families so much.



finally! The Simpsons movie! One that won't completely mess with my head or make me feel more sick to my stomach! With the exception of Bart's weenie. A.
Spider pig, spider pig, doing the things that a spider pig does
can he hang? from a string... no he can't. he's just a pig.



I'm trying to catch up on all the great 70s films that I haven't really *watched*... so after Conversation and Dog Day Afternoon, it's Midnight Cowboy and Cool Hand Luke (yeah yeah, '67, whatever). Kramer vs Kramer, Tootsie and The President's Men are three of my all-time favorites, so it's possible that by the end of this review, I might have Dustin Hoffman's 70s pouffy hair and really, really ugly hip huggers. (yeah yeah, they're not all from the '70s, it's just a general point)

Let's be honest... I'm reading three books at once and watching too many movies. I'm sick. I'm this weird when I'm well. I think the nightmares may be my own fault.

Or maybe it's just the full moon outside my hot apartment...
ooh, Moonstruck! There's another good one to add to Netflix.