On the slab, and a springtime renovation confessional

I woke up on the operating table with my hospital gown pulled up to my chest and a surgeon asking me "Do you feel this?" as she sliced into my leg. 

"Yes," I said. "But my pain was in my stomach. I thought you were going to operate on that."

"Well, we certainly can," she said. "Just let me place this electrode, and I will suture up your leg. Then we'll get to work on the stomach." The surgeon placed a small red wire into the incision and then glued the flap of skin back in place.

I had my doubts about the procedure. I felt like one of those people who gets the wrong surgery because the doctor has gotten ahold of someone else's chart. I tried to get up, but the anesthesia had me immobilized. 

The next thing I knew, I was in a different dream, and my friend Richard started asking me questions about some weed that I'd been growing.

"Do you know how popular this kind is?" he asked. "Does it really taste like blueberries? How strong is it? That's funny that they named it after a singer. Did you know they named it after Barry White?" He kept on and on with the questions until I finally had to stop him.

"I know, I know," I said, a little fatigued by his excitement. "Berry White, because it is a cross between Blueberry and White Widow, both popular strains of high end cannabis." 

----

I haven't been sleeping well, so my dreams are suffering as a result. Here's another scrap from the following day.

It was early spring, and the weather hadn't fully committed, although the trees and grass had all gotten on board, putting out flowers and foliage in advance of the change. I was driving home from somewhere on rain soaked roads, and my car kept swerving off into muddy culverts as I struggled to keep it on track. 

At one point, I had to get out and push the car with one foot on the ground and the other on the accelerator. Although it seemed unlikely, somehow this awkward skateboard technique worked, and the car gained traction, peeling out so fast that I barely had time to jump back in.

As I got to my house, I noticed a lot of debris in the middle of the road. Someone had been doing some excavating, leveling and clearing the front of my property, and they left all the rocks and muddy tree stumps in giant piles blocking the road. The equipment had done a fair amount of damage to the asphalt as well.

"Andrew, you need to water your plants," Greg's voice came from somewhere up my driveway.

I didn't think I had any plants, but I went up to see what Greg was talking about. The whole front of my property had been stripped of all of its trees and vegetation, and all that was left was a smooth, graded surface with some roads carved into the slick, chocolate colored earth. 

"They left some junk on the road out in front," I told Greg. "They are going to have to remove that, right? I mean, they can't leave it like that. Once paved, always paved. We can't regress."

"We can't regress," Greg agreed.

That's all I remember. Not worth publishing, but I had to write it down, regardless.

----

Meanwhile, back in the real world, I am struggling with my own identity. Springtime is here, and I am feeling the hormonal pull of wandering affections. There is a girl in group that I am becoming friends with and have developed feelings for. I am giddy with the nervous energy of a teenage crush, and there is a debilitating obsessiveness to my thought patterns. Hung up, is what they used to call it, I believe.

My current relationship with Denise is in a stagnant stasis, held there firmly by my refusal to move forward or back. I don't want to hurt her or "break up" with her, but since I never fully accepted the designation of boyfriend and have staunchly refused her the words "I love you," words that have come so easily in other situations with other people, I don't know what I'd be breaking up, exactly. We are still just friends, two lonely people settling for occasional companionship. 

I'm conflicted, because I do care about Denise, but in a sentimental, sad kind of way. I don't feel the spark that I do with this new girl. I would surely miss Denise if she were gone, and I'd think about her and our times together with a sorrowful regret. How could I just abandon her to her lonely life, with her tiny, aging dog in that dark apartment? How could I throw away a person with whom I have had intimate relations, gone places and shared experiences? She has invested in me, and I have given her little in return emotionally.

My dream probably represents the fact that, yes, spring is busting out all over, like my hormones. Recklessly, I am destroying my current configuration, my relationship with Denise, in favor of something new. I am breaking ground in this new relationship, but it is still in the early stages, and I haven't cleaned up the mess from the deconstruction yet. I need to water the plants, but I don't even know if there are any plants to water.