Sometimes my dreams wake me up v.12.3

Last night my boys and I went out drinking and then we got a late night Philly Cheese Steak. I have often heard people blame late night food for causing crazy dreams and maybe now I have to believe in that viewpoint.

My dream last night was so vivid and 'real' that I did not get a good night of sleep, all bloody HOUR that it was. I may have to avoid late night Philly's if they really cause vivid dreams because I cannot afford my sleep to be affected by dreams with the horrible insomnia that I suffer from. I also find it weird that I was able to fall into a dream so quickly. I wonder if my insomnia allows for quicker REM cycles and entering deep sleep stages faster than normal folks. I could look this up, or I could wildly speculate...I will go with wild speculation and say that I entered it rapidly and that is not normal.

So Derek has been insisting the last few times I have been around him that I should do stand up comedy. An idea I am very resistant to. I am witty in small settings, I can easily make fun of people, their mistakes, appearances, actions and words. But that is because I am relaxed around friends, quick witted and willing to make fun without being mean. BUT, I do not have the ego to think that I could actually stand before an audience and entertain them. In fact to me that would be a horrifying thought. And that horrifying thought is part of what laced the dream. I should add right now that I woke up panting as if I had run a mile or in my case engaged in public speaking, which always charges me up and gets my heart racing.

So in my dream the Eagle Rock clique (yup I call my different groups cliques based on their locations: The Irvine clique, now excludes me; the Hermosa Beach Clique makes me look like a little guy {an aside to the aside: My bro and his gf were having dinner and he saw me walk out of a restaurant with the HB clique and turned to his gf and said words that I have often uttered [Blood relation and mind connection] "When was the last time you ever saw Aaron being the smallest guy in a group?" - I am currently 208lbs and still the smallest guy in the HB clique} and the South Pas/Eagle Rock clique makes us look like the United Nations) were all out at a bar which somehow led to us going to a concert - dreams yeesh u just jump around to locations with impunity.

Derek apparently knows the MC of the show, NT, is a feted celeb, Ofelia has her 'ladies' being ogled by various peeps as she walks the red carpet, Tracy somehow is dating not one but 2 Texas Rangers players and they are with our clique (I think that might have been inspired by the fact that we had drinks in a bar with Robert Horry, some small time actors and a few baseball players) Yau was buying Uggs (look the concert had a great concession store) and insisting that he would not cook crab brought in from outside the arena. But the painful part is that while they are all rolling down the Red Carpet like ballers I was bringing up the rear combing out my afro. Thing is as I walked the carpet I could feel tangles in my fro which I kept trying to twist out (I kid you not I woke up this morning and I had twisted parts of my hair) so I was not getting to meet the fans of the other guys...none of the fans were there for me.

The dream then jumps: Derek is on stage, NT and O are in the front row, T-money is sitting in a player's lap (dirty girl) while the other player looks ticked and Yau has multiple girls trying to talk to him. I however am in the back of the arena, nervously sweating. My brain I think was trying to wake me up, because I started to question my dream while in the dream, I kept telling myself this must be a nightmare because I knew something bad was going to happen. Well in the dream bad things started to happen to peeps around me while leaving me ok. People were getting slimed like the old school Nickelodeon show 'You can't do that on TV'. Anytime anyone answered a question wrong, or had a bad performance, or took too long to start singing they were slimed. It was a horrible mix of American Idol, YCDTOTV, Last Comic Standing, and Showtime at the Apollo.

But, no biggie, everyone was getting slimed but I was clearly safe right? Because no way was I ever going on that stage. So why was I sweating so much? Then I saw Derek grab the mic, NT and O started walking towards me, Tracy started pointing at me, and Yau who was now right beside me yelled "Oh here go hell come" even in my bloody dreams it seems I try to keep racial integrity. I felt my legs start to propel me down the arena, which I realized became the Nokia theater and as I am walking towards the girls I started to remove my watch (leather band - Oh crap, this means I am worried about getting slimed) I remove the gold bracelet because I do not want the force of the slime to break the links (apparently I thought the slime would hit me like a hurricane) then as I am handing them to NT I yell, "This means nothing, I am not going to get slimed I am just doing this because the rules say take off jewelry" I hand O my wallet (hmm...should I be worried that the girls are handed all my valuables?) with the words "try not to spend all of it" I then jump on stage - it's a dream I can be athletic.

I am at this point furious with Derek, and basically threaten him with grievous bodily harm no matter the outcome. I tell him that if I get slimed, his life is forfeit and if I come out on top I am smashing his face in for getting me in this situation. Derek just chuckles (damn it FEAR ME IN MY DREAMS, and in real life) hands me the mic and then does what he always says he will do if we ever go to an open mic, he just starts yelling topics at me, and pointing to people in the audience for me to make fun of.

And I RIP THE STAGE. This is why it was a dream and not a nightmare, I performed an excellent set. I stood up there for 15 minutes and performed. What is crazy about it, is that in my dream I could feel myself on stage and I felt the passage of time, I felt myself running through a whole set. And unfortunately I could also feel myself stealing jokes from other comedians and using them on people in the audience...but I suspect that was necessary for the passage of time in the dream, there is no way I could have actually run through a set without having back up material. But the audience loved me, they laughed like I was Richard Pryor. I was so good that the guy with the slime controls started sliming people in the audience for laughing too hard. He then started sliming anyone I made fun of: By the time I was done almost half the audience was covered in green.

And then because clearly my dreams turn me into a cocky bastard I just held out my arms as if welcoming it all in and had the girls come on stage and replace my jewelry on my arms...because apparently if you are funny, you do not need to use your own hands. My wallet was placed in my back pocket in a rather awkward exchange and Tracy let me know that the players wanted to hang out with me because I was such a cool guy. I then told Yau to pick a girl because the rest were Derek's. Yeah clearly even in my dreams I cannot be a 'playa'.

So since I had created a commitment for Yau, and a 'playground' for Derek, I mysteriously became MARRIED...I think at this point my brain was starting to 'function' again because things really got fuzzy. I was married because I wanted to go home and 'celebrate' (good Christian upbringing) but I could NOT make out who my wife was. I do know that my friends were high-fiving me for such a good choice in the quality of girl and my parents were finally happy with me.

During the wedding that seemed to last only a minute (I suspect residual Vegas flashbacks) I still managed to refurbish my sister's house and win a death penalty case. So just as I was shaking hands with my client (who I really thought was guilty so I was having a crisis of conscience) I winked at the judge and got threatened with contempt of court and...WOKE UP!

Yup...that is my dream and if food is the reason for that brand of crazy, we might be in trouble because I just ate chicken pot pie and ice cream while typing this and it is 12:15am.