I had a cigarette this morning...

I woke up shaking, which is hard to do in my bed. My bed is like a large, firm marshmallow and when you lie in it you are covered in chocolate sauce. (With analogies like that, is it any wonder I'm fat?) I was still tired and started to sink back to sleep but, as my dream seemed to force its was to the fore once again, I knew that the last thing I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

I threw on some clothes, stepped outside, and lit a cigarette.

I wouldn't write this one down in the dream journal. I didn't want to jot down every detail. I kinda wished I'd forget it. But I was still half-asleep then and thought about it.

Rosa had allowed me to move back in again. Allowed. I use that word because there was no love there. Maybe I'd lost my home or my job or both - she wasn't doing it to be with me. I packed everything carefully in my truck (in the dream, I had a truck with a camper shell) and headed over. The house was not the same one where I'd lived with Rosa for five years and that fact scraped along my skull like a rusty tack. In dream and waking hours, that truth is inescapable. She found me a room and left me there alone. For some reason, I'd moved in at night and I didn't sleep my first night there. Strangers wandered in and out of the house. Huge, paper signs pointed out Rosa's room and pointed upstairs to Michael's room. The baby was hidden from me. Also gone was Chloe, my puppy, who Rosa has very effectively stolen from my life and who I don't mention I miss nearly as much as I actually do. In the front door, Rosa's keys hung carelessly. When morning broke, I asked Rosa if she could give me a few feet in the garage to store my things. She figured she could but only begrudgingly.

And I woke up shaking.

I analyzed her emotions through the cigarette. It wasn't love. It was never love. This drove an epiphanous, iron spike through my heart.

When I think of Rosa, I feel love.

I think when Rosa thinks of me, she feels shame.

I shouldn't have been surprised to awake as I did. I'd also gotten out of bed at one this morning from a dream I cannot recall, wishing it was time to get up. I'd gone to bed after a long Sunday spent cleaning. In the midst of that cleaning, I'd realized a few things.

The first thing was that I had never meant to live there as long as I have. It was supposed to be temporary. You know, until Rosa saw the error of her ways, that kind of thing. Guess I showed her, huh? For a long time, I'd thought of it as a prison cell. Then, only a few months ago, I'd become comfortable in it. Soon, I'll need to look for a house (condo/townhouse) and stop paying rent. Get the fuck out. Rosa will never see the error of her ways and she'll never take me back. I'll never have her in my life again.

Kinda makes you wish you could stop breathing.

The other thing I realized came as the result of an email I'd been sent by a director. I was being asked to audition for the lead role in "Something to Hide" in Newport Beach. Another play. Yet another play. Another in a series stretching back to the end of my life, stretching back to when I'd lost Rosa. One after another after another - that's what my life had become about. Keeping busy. Keeping productive. I remembered entire weekends with Rosa when we'd do nothing but cuddle and I wouldn't need to be productive because I had love. Now, I have nothing.

I'd just finished a play. "Do Hoosier's Go to Heaven?" Sure, it was just a staged reading but still, one more performance. It went exactly okay. It was 2.5 out of 5 stars. It was graded a "C". Nothing to write home about but nobody walked out in the middle.

It was the first time I'd refused to follow direction since returning to theater. The idiot director had us stomping our feet as we said our dialogue... the stomping was supposed to be in time. We looked like preschoolers. I told her that it looked silly and amateurish. She said, "That's because you're throwing them off." So, I told the others to stomp without me - and it sounded about as synchronized as falling hail. (After two rehearsals, what do you expect?) I told her I wouldn't do it. She said, "It's nice to see someone so optimistic." This is when I kind of lost it. "No. I'm being realistic. I want Eric's play to look good, not like something out of grade school. You should appreciate that." In the end, the director said, "No stomping." Was it because I was a prick? Maybe, but Eric's play sounded less goofy as a result, so I was pleased.

One of the actor's, Tony, is in an improv group through Ask Kevin Productions and wants me to audition for it. Personally, I hate improv. To do improv well, you have to be willing to make a complete fool of yourself. Unfortunately, I have a mental block when it comes to making a complete fool of myself. Actually, I'd rather not. I tend to avoid those situations. (Okay, except when it comes to Rosa.) Hopefully, he'll forget about me and forget he'd asked.

He was impressed by my performance; that's why he asked. He thought I played a drug-addict drunk rather well. It wasn't hard. Going method, I'd gotten nice and drunk Friday night so that I'd suffer from a hangover the next morning. Then, I didn't eat before the performance. When it came time to perform, I was shaky, slack, and slurring.

And to make sure I had cotton-mouth during the show, I had a cigarette before we went on.